THE TAME OR DOMESTIC GAYAL.
The representation of the Gayal here given was taken from a living specimen in the Zoological Gardens, 1846.
The scanty information I was able to glean concerning it, consists in its having been procured at Chitagong, and shipped, as a commercial speculation, from Calcutta for London, in January 1844, when about two years and a half old. It remained in the Zoological Gardens till the summer of 1846, when it died from inflammation of the bowels, brought on chiefly by eating too much green food.
I had the above particulars from Mr. Bartlett, naturalist, &c., who had been commissioned to dispose of it. He preserved the skeleton, which he kindly allowed me to examine, and from which I made the sketches of the skull and horns, which appear on the following page.
The skeleton has fourteen pairs of ribs.
Skull of Domestic Gayal, viewed in front, with Section of Horn.
| Inches. | |
| Distance from tip to tip (a to a) | 39 |
| Length of horn (a to b) | 16 |
| Circumference of horn at base | 17 |
| Distance of bases (b to b) | 11 |
| Length of skull (c to c) | 19 |
| Fig. d, section of the horn, at the base. |