The Buffalo. Buffaloes abound in all parts of Ceylon, but they are only to be seen in their native wildness in the vast solitudes of the northern and eastern provinces, where rivers, lagoons, and dilapidated tanks abound. In these they delight to immerse themselves till only their heads appear above the surface; or, enveloped in mud to protect themselves from the assaults of insects, luxuriate in the long sedges by the water margins.

When the buffalo is browsing, a crow will frequently be seen stationed on his back, engaged in freeing it from the ticks and other pests which attach themselves to his leathery hide, the smooth brown surface of which, unprotected by hair, shines with an unpleasant polish in the sunlight. When in motion he throws back his clumsy head till the huge horns rest on his shoulders, and the nose is presented in a line, with the eyes. When wild they are at all times uncertain in disposition, but so frequently savage that it is never quite safe to approach them, if disturbed in their pasture or alarmed from their repose in the shallow lakes. On such occasions they hurry into line, drawn up in defensive array, with a few of the oldest bulls in advance; and, wheeling in circles, their horns clashing with a loud sound as they clank them together in their rapid evolutions, the herd betakes itself to flight. Then forming again at a safer distance, they halt as before, elevating their nostrils, and throwing back their heads to take a cautious survey of the intruders. The sportsman rarely molests them, so huge a creature affording no worthy mark for his skill, and their wanton slaughter adding nothing to the supply of food for their assailant.

In the Hambantotte country, where the Singhalese domesticate the buffaloes, and use them to assist in the labour of the rice lands, the villagers are much annoyed by the wild ones, which mingle with the tame when sent out to the woods to pasture; and it constantly

happens that a savage stranger, placing himself at the head of the tame herd, resists the attempts of the owners to drive them homewards at sunset. In the districts of Putlam and the Seven Corles buffaloes are generally used for draught; and in carrying heavy loads of salt from the coast towards the interior, they drag a cart over roads which would defy the weaker strength of bullocks.

In one place between Batticaloa and Trincomalie we found the natives making an ingenious use of them when engaged in shooting water-fowl in the vast salt marshes and muddy lakes. Being an object to which the birds are accustomed, the Singhalese train the buffalo to the sport, and, concealed behind, the animal browsing listlessly along, they guide it by ropes attached to its horns, and thus creep undiscovered within shot of the flock. The same practice prevails, I believe, in some of the northern parts of India, where they are similarly trained to assist the sportsman in approaching deer. One of these "sporting buffaloes" sells for a considerable sum.

The buffalo, like the elk, is sometimes found in Ceylon as an albino, with purely white hair and pink iris. There is a peculiarity in the formation of its foot, which, though it must have attracted attention, I have never seen mentioned by naturalists. It is equivalent to an arrangement that distinguishes the foot of the reindeer from that of the stag and the antelope. In them the hoofs, being constructed for lightness and flight, are compact and vertical; but, in the reindeer, the joints of the tarsal bones admit of lateral expansion, and the broad hoofs curve upwards in front, while the two secondary ones behind (which are but slightly developed in the fallow deer and others of the same family) are prolonged till, in certain positions, they are capable of being applied to the ground, thus adding to the circumference and sustaining power of the foot. It has been usually suggested as the probable

design of this structure, that it is to enable the reindeer to shovel under the snow in order to reach the lichens beneath it; but I apprehend that another use of it has been overlooked, that of facilitating its movements in search of food by increasing the difficulty of its sinking in the snow.

A formation precisely analogous in the buffalo seems to point to a corresponding design. The ox, whose life is spent on firm ground, has the bones of the foot so constructed as to afford the most solid support to an animal of its great weight; but in the buffalo, which delights in the morasses on the margins of pools and rivers, the formation of the foot resembles that of the reindeer. The tarsi in front extend almost horizontally from the upright bones of the leg, and spread widely on touching the ground; the hoofs are flattened and broad, with the extremities turned upwards; and the false hoofs descend behind till, in walking, they make a clattering sound. In traversing the marshes, this combination of abnormal incidents serves to give extraordinary breadth to the foot, and not only prevents the buffalo from sinking inconveniently in soft ground', but at the same time presents no obstacle to the withdrawal of his foot from the mud.

Deer." Deer," says the truthful old chronicler, Robert Knox, "are in great abundance in the woods, from the largeness of a cow to the smallness of a hare, for here is a creature in this land no bigger than the latter, though every part rightly resembleth a deer: it is called meminna, of a grey colour, with white spots and good meat."2 The little creature which thus dwelt in the recollection of the old man, as one of the memo

1 PROFESSOR OWEN has noticed a similar fact regarding the rudiments of the second and fifth digits in the instance of the elk and bison, which have them largely expanded where they inhabit swampy ground; whilst

they are nearly obliterated in the camel and dromedary, which traverse arid deserts. OWEN on Limbs, p. 34; see also BELL on the Hand, ch. iii.

2 KNOX's Relation, &c., book i.

c. 6.

rials of his long captivity, is the small "musk deer,"1 so called in India, although neither sex is provided with a musk-bag; and the Europeans in Ceylon know it by the name of the moose deer. Its extreme length never reaches two feet; and of those which were domesticated about my house, few exceeded ten inches in height, their graceful limbs being of similar delicate proportion. It possesses long and extremely sharp tusks, with which it inflicts a severe bite. The interpreter moodliar of Negombo had a milk white Meminna in 1847, which he designed to send home as an acceptable present to Her Majesty, but it was unfortunately killed by an accident.2

Ceylon Elk.-In the mountains, the Ceylon elk3, which reminds one of the red deer of Scotland, attains the height of four or five feet; it abounds in all places which are intersected by shady rivers; where, though its hunting affords an endless resource to the sportsman, its venison scarcely equals in quality the inferior beef of the lowland ox. In the glades and park-like openings that diversify the great forests of the interior, the spotted axis troops in herds as numerous as the fallow deer in England; and, in journeys through the jungle, when often dependent on the guns of our party for the precarious supply of the table, we found the flesh of the Axis and the Muntjac3 a sorry substitute for that of the pea-fowl, the junglecock, and flamingo. The occurrence of albinos is very frequent

1 Moschus meminna.

2 When the English took possession of Kandy, in 1803, they found "five beautiful milk-white deer in the palace, which was noted as a very extraordinary thing."-Letter in Appendix to PERCEVAL'S Ceylon, p. 428. The writer does not say of what species they were.

3 Rusa Aristotelis. Dr. GRAY has lately shown that this is the great aris of Cuvier. — Oss. Foss. 502, t. 39. f. 10. The Singhalese, on fol

lowing the elk, frequently effect their
approaches by so imitating the call
of the animal as to induce them to
respond. An instance occurred
during my residence in Ceylon, in
which two natives, whose mimicry
had mutually deceived them, crept
so close together in the jungle that
one shot the other, supposing the cry
to proceed from the game.

Axis maculata, H. Smith.
5 Stylocerus muntjac, Horsf.

in troops of the axis.

Deer's horns are an article of

export from Ceylon, and considerable quantities are annually sent to the United Kingdom.

VII. PACHYDERMATA. The Elephant.-The elephant and the wild boar, the Singhalese "waloora," are the only representatives of the pachydermatous order. The latter, which differs in no respect from the wild boar of India, is found in droves in all parts of the island where vegetation and water are abundant. The elephant, the lord paramount of the Ceylon forests, is to be met with in every district, on the confines of the woods, in whose depths he finds concealment and shade during the hours when the sun is high, and from which he emerges only at twilight to wend his way towards the rivers and tanks, where he luxuriates till dawn, when he again seeks the retirement of the deep forests. This noble animal fills so dignified a place both in the zoology and œconomy of Ceylon, and his habits in a state of nature have been so much misunderstood, that I shall devote a separate section to his defence from misrepresentation, and to an exposition of what, from observation and experience, I believe to be his genuine character when free in his native domains.

VIII. CETACEA.-Among the Cetacea the occurrence of the Dugong1 on various points of the coast, and especially on the western side of the island, has been noticed elsewhere; and whales are so frequently seen that they have been captured within sight of Colombo, and more than once their carcases, after having been flinched by the whalers, have floated on shore near the light-house, tainting the atmosphere within the fort by their rapid decomposition.

From this sketch of the Mammalia it will be seen that, in its general features, this branch of the Fauna bears a striking resemblance to that of Southern India, although many of the larger animals of the latter are

1 Halicore dugong, F. Cuv.