The Official Report referred to by DR. CAMPBELL, has been forwarded by Mr. Secretary BUSHBY, for the information of the Society, and will appear in an early number of the Journal.

The report having been read, it was proposed by the President, and seconded by Colonel H. BURNEY-That the Society record its deep regret at the death of this most able and eminent philologist and enterprising traveller, the loss of whose services in the exploration of countries so little known as Thibet, and its circumjacent regions, and in the elucidation of historical and philological questions, connected with the races which inhabit those interesting and almost unknown tracts, may be looked upon as a calamity to be deplored by the learned world of Europe, and that the sum of Co's. Rupees One Thousand be placed at the disposal of Dr. A. CAMPBELL, for the erection of a Monument, adding thereto a Tombstone, with suitable inscription to the memory of the deceased.

Read a letter of 12th April 1842, from Mr. G. T. LUSHINGTON, intimating that he had on that day "forwarded another specimen for the Society's Mu66 seum, which I hope and believe will prove acceptable. It is the Skin of a Fox

"

brought down by the Jowalier Bhotias this year, from the vicinity of the great Himalayan Chain. The fur is, in my opinion, and indeed in that of all who "have seen it, very beautiful, and as it seems to have been well preserved, I "hope your Curator will be able to make a good job of it."

"I do not know whether you have any other specimen in the Museum, but think "it not likely that you have one, unless HODGSON may have sent one from Katman"dhoo. The under-hair of the animal is something like that of the Shawl Goat in "fineness of texture. Its habitat may be said to be the lofty mountains of Jowa"lier and other Bhote Mehals, in the vicinity of the eternal snows."

"I have another article ready for you, but want to know whether it is worth

'sending. If you already have it, of course it is not worth the carriage, but if it is new to you, I think it will be prized.

"It is the Steam Blow-pipe used by the Sonars of Almora, and other parts of the "hills. It is of copper, about five inches in height, and of this shape.

"The globe A being first slightly heated, the nozzle B is inserted B

"into a cupful of cold water, which it rapidly sucks up, thus

A

"filling itself. It is then placed in a brazier, and the steam

"formed by the boiling water contained in the globe is expelled at the nozzle

"B with considerable force, and thus produces a continued and powerful "" blast.

"The people here say it came from "Cheen"-and believe one of the Nepalese "Soobabs first introduced it, about forty or fifty years ago. The curious part of it, I "fancy, is the distinct application of Steam to one art so many years ago, among a

"people so utterly devoid of mechanical knowledge in other matters as our hill men are."

"

The specimen has been received, and placed in the Museum, being previously mounted.

Read letter of 18th April 1842, from Lieutenant J. BROCKMAN, H. M. 50th Regiment, presenting two Tartar Bows, &c. Quiver of Arrows taken at Amoy, also a kind of Sword taken at Chinhae.

The Secretary submitted to the Meeting private Seals and Seals of Office found in the house of the principal Mandarins of Amoy at the taking of that place; a Silken Belt, a Chinese Soldier's Uniform with the name and number of his corps on breast and back, taken at Ningpo from the Chinese Arsenal, and a curious UnderShirt for wearing next the skin in hot weather, taken at the storming of Chinhae. The whole presented by Mr. Dalrymple of the C. S. to whom the best thanks of the Society were voted.

The Secretary at the same time presented a Standard Colour of a Chinese Marine Regiment, and a Sword taken at the storming of the Bogue forts in China.

The following list of specimens were presented by Colonel H. BURNEY :

An Echinite, from Jebel Jaise, near Cairo.

Specimen of a portion of the stem of a Fossil Palm, and samples of fossil exogenous wood, from the petrified forest near Cairo.

Ditto of Limestone, of which the great Pyramid is built.

Ditto of close Stalagmitic Limestone, whereof the splendid mosque now building by Mehemet Ali is constructed.

Ditto of the coarser of two kinds of Granite met with in the vicinity of the Pyramids, and of which some of the latter are partly constructed, together with various Sarcophagi.

Read petition of 2nd May 1842, from Sree Ram Govinda Sormona, praying to be presented with the last vol. of the Mahabharut for correcting the proof sheets of Sanscrit Books. The presentation ordered.

Read letter of 28th April 1842, from Lieutenant A. CUNNINGHAM, intimating that he was " busy with a very long article on the Coins of Kashmere. Fourteen plates are now finished, and the fifteenth is now being lithographed. A supernumerary plate must be added to contain the coins of various new, besides some curious types of known, kings, and the last plate will be one of Monograms, so arranged as to shew at a glance the names of all the kings who used any one Monogram, and all the Monograms which any one king used."

Read letter of 14th April 1842, from Dr. T. A. WISE, assenting to the proposal of printing his Commentaries on the ancient Hindoo System of Medicine.

Read Mr. LOVELL REEVES' letter to Mr. BLYTH, requesting proposal for the purchase of his book, (Systematic Conchology,) by the Asiatic Society. Ordered, that two copies (with colored plates,) of the work be subscribed for the Library of the Society.

The Curator read his Report for the month of April 1842, as follows:

SIR, I have the pleasure on this occasion to congratulate the Society on the variety of presentations made for their Museum during the past month, and on the number of different persons who have thus contributed to its enrichment. These donations have principally consisted of Mammalia, Birds, and Shells, with a valuable box of Insects from Afghanistan, and are as follow:

MAMMALIA.

From Dr. PEARSON, the Society has received a number of skins, but unfortunately not prepared for being mounted, which are referrible to the following species:

Ursus Tibetanus, the Black Bear of the Himalaya, figured by Mons. F. Cuvier. Cervus (Styloceros) Muntjac, v. Ratwa of Hodgson: the Kakur, or Barking Deer of sportsmen.

C. (Rusa) Hippelaphus: the Sambur, adult and young.

Næmorhædus Thar, Hodgson: two skins of males.

Bos (Bison) grunniens: the Yak, a particularly fine skin.

B. (Taurus) Gaurus, v. Bibos cavifrons, Hodgson, and Bos aculeatus, Wagler: the Gaour; a very large skin, from Arracan. The Gaour, I may remark, ranges southward into the Malay Peninsula, from which locality there is a horn of this species in the Museum of the Hon. Company in London: the dimensions of one killed on the Keddah Coast, with a figure of the head, are given in the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal, III.50; and there is a skull of a female, understood to be from the South of China, in the London United Service Museum. Dr. Helfer states that, in Tenasserim, "the great Bos Gaurus is rather rare, but Bison Guodus very common; besides another small kind of Cow, called by the Burmese F'hain, of which I saw foot-prints, but never the living animal." J. A. S., VII. 860. Of this latter more presently. In Evidently a misprint for Gavaus, the Gayal; for the words may be written to look very much

alike.

the Indian Peninsula, the Gaour inhabits all the extensive forest tracts from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, and there can be little or no doubt that the Guavera of Ceylon, noticed by Knox, refers to the same species. Major Forbes, in his recently published 'Journal of Eleven Years' Residence' in that Island (II. 159), informs us that it has been extirpated in Ceylon for more than half a century. A correspondent of the 'Bengal Sporting Magazine,' (for 1835, 217,) writing from the southern Mahratta country, remarks, that "the Bison of this jungle differs materially from those of the Mahabaleshwer hills. The latter is merely a blue Cow of the colour of a Buffalo, but of large size. The regular Bison of Dandelly is a tremendous animal, its highest point being the shoulder." From this it might be inferred, that the North-western animal had not the same elevated spinal ridge; but I am little inclined to suspect that they are different, the more especially as I find the following passage in the Transactions of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India,' VII. 112. "The only wild cattle we have," observes the writer, J. Little, Esq. "is the Gowha of the natives (Bos Gaurus). This animal is found in the dense jungles, along the whole range of the Western Ghauts from Assurghur to Cape Comorin. A male was shot at the convalescent station of Mahablesher, near the source of the Kristna, which measured at the shoulder fully seventeen hands high." I have credible information of a Gaour which stood not less than nineteen hands in vertical height. That the Gaour varies much in size, I can assert from personal observation of about forty skulls of this species: one of an adult male taken to England, by the late Honorary Curator of this Society, Dr. Evans, is quite a pigmy in comparison with the enormous head in the United Service Museum. A head of a female, with the skin on, in that of the Hon. East India Company, was presented by the late Major-General Hardwicke, as the As' or Asseel Gayal of that naturalist, (who figures it in one of the volumes of the 'Zoological Journal,') and of Dr. McCrae ('Asiatic Researches,' VIII. 495). The latter author speaks of it as the Seloi of the Cucis, or Kookies, and P'hanj of the Mugs and Burmahs; which last name is doubtless identical with the F'hain of Dr. Helfer, applied to another species.

In the passage I have already quoted from Dr. Helfer's list of Tenasserim animals, three species of this group are mentioned, the second of which I conclude to be the Gayal (B. frontalis, Lambert, Lin. Trans. VII. 57 and 302, v. B. Gavaus, Colebrooke, 'Asiatic Researches,' VIII. 487, v. B. Sylhetanus, Duvaucel, F. Cuv. Mammal), which Baron Cuvier strangely suggests to be a breed between the common Ox and Buffalo (' Régne Animal,' I. 280, and again in his 'Ossemens Fossiles'), but which is a genuine species, of which splendid living examples were, not long ago, in the park at Barrackpore, perfectly tame and gentle. This animal has never been found to the westward of the Boorampooter, and its skull has lately been figured by Mr. Hodgson (Journ. As. Soc. 1841, 470). I am unaware that any trace of it exists in any Museum.

Another very fine species of this group is the Banteng of Java and Borneo (Bos Sondaicus, Muller, B. Bentinger, Temminck, and B. leucoprymnus, Quoy and Gay

In London alone, there are specimens in the British Museum, that of the Hon. East India Company, of the Zoological Society, Royal Asiatic Society, Royal College of Surgeons, London University, King's College, the United Service Museum, besides many in private collections, as that of Professor Bell, Mr. Blofeld of Middle Row, Holborn, &c.

mard), though, as regards the last, I have the authority of Dr. Schlegel of Amsterdam for asserting, that the individual described by these naturalists was a hybrid between the Banteng and the domestic species, such as are very commonly produced in Java, and especially in the Island of Bali, being trained there for domestic purposes. Sir Stamford Raffles notices, in his History of Java' (I. III), that "the degenerate domestic cows [of that island,] are sometimes driven into the forest to couple with the wild Banteng, for the sake of improving the breed"; and in Moor's Notices of the Indian Archipelago,' p. 95, we are informed that, in Bali, "the breed of cattle is extremely fine, almost every one of these beasts being fat, plump, and good looking; you seldom, if ever, see a poor cow in Bali : it is a breed of a much larger size than the common run of cattle in Java, and is obtained from a cross from the Wild Cow, with the same animal; they are generally of a red colour, and all of them are white between the hind legs, and about the rump, so that I do not recollect seeing one that was not white-breeched. The people have no land expressly devoted to grazing, but let their cattle eat the old stubble, or fresh grass of the rice-fields, after the crops have been taken off; and while the grass is growing, they let the cattle stray into the commons, and woods, and pick up what they can get by the road-side. The rude plough is drawn by two oxen abreast, which the ploughman drives with one hand, while guides the plough with the other." There is a figure of a hybrid half-Banteng Javanese Cow in the collection of drawings bequeathed by the late Major-General Hardwicke to the British Museum, and of which I possess a rough copy.

The colour of the pure Banteng is similar to that of the Gaour and Gayal, or earthybrown passing into black, with the four limbs white from the mid-joint downward, in addition to which this species has constantly a large oval white patch on each buttock, whence the name leucoprymnus bestowed by M. M. Quoy and Gaymard. Sir Stamford Raffles mentions, that "a remarkable change takes place in the appearance of this animal after castration, the colour in a few months becoming invariably red” (Hist. Java, I. III). Its frontal ridge has little tendency to become elevated; and the following is a description of the finer of two frontlets of the male in the Museum of this Society, presented by Prince William Henry of the Netherlands (vide J. A. S. VI. 987). Horns very rugous at base, flattened as in the Gaour and Gayal, but in a less degree, and somewhat similar in flexure to those of the Gaour, though approaching more in this respect to those of the Cape Buffalo, of a black colour, and twenty inches and a half long over the curve, fourteen and a half round at base, their widest portion thirtyfive inches apart measuring outside, and tips returning to twenty-seven inches; at base they are six inches asunder across the vertex, widening anteriorly. According to Dr. Solomon Muller, "the Banteng is found in Java in territories which are seldom visited by man, as well in the forests of the plains and of the coast, as in those of the mountains, where it is pretty common. We have likewise seen traces of it in Borneo, and have even received a calf from the Dujaks about a month old. According to Raffles it is also found in Bali; but in Sumatra it does not appear to exist." Sir Stamford Raffles states, that "it is found chiefly in the forests eastward of Pasúran, and in Bali, though it also occurs in other parts of Java."

To the same distinguished statesman, we are indebted for the following piece of information respecting the domestic cattle of Sumatra :-"There is a very fine breed of cattle peculiar to Sumatra, of which I saw abundance in Menangkabu when I