64
The Cattle of India and their Development
sub-divided into lateral-horned and short-horned, and these are described as
possessing a long coffin-shaped skull with a convex profile and bifid thoracic
superior spines. One of the divisions of the pseudo-Zebus is the lyre-horned,
in which the skull is said to show marked evidence of Hamitic Longhorn in-
fluence, being wide in the forehead and the orbital arches prominent. The
profile is generally flat. No osteological material of the lyre-horned Zebu has
been examined, a point of interest to future investigators. Another suggested
classification of the Zebus is by the position of the hump, which may be either
cervico-thoracic and muscular or thoracic and musculo-fatty. If this classi-
fication is adopted, all present-day Indian cattle will fall into the latter class,
with the exception of the Siri breed of Bhutan.
Following the arrangement of Olver [4], Indian cattle may be divided into
five well-marked groups :
Group I. Lyre-horned grey cattle with wide forehead, prominent orbital
arches, face flat or dished in profile, represented by the Kankrej, Malvi, and
possibly Tharparkar, breeds.
Group II. Short-horned white or light-grey cattle, with a long coffin-
shaped skull, orbital arches not prominent, face slightly convex in profile,
represented by the Bhagnari, Nagori, Mehwati, Rath, Hariana, Krishna Valley,
and Ongole breeds.
Group III. Ponderous, usually spotted red and white or brown and white,
milch-type cattle with prominent forehead, pendulous dewlap and sheath,
lateral and often curly horned, represented by the Gir, Sahiwal, Deoni, Nimari,
and possibly Sindhi, breeds.
Group IV. Medium-sized compact draught-type animals, usually grey,
with tight sheath, very prominent forehead, long pointed horns arising close
together, represented by the Hallikar (Amrit Mahal), Khillari, Kangayam,
Alumbadi, and Bargur breeds.
Group V. Small red or black cattle, often with white markings, short-
horned, with tight sheath, poll and top of hump usually covered with coarse
hairs, represented by the cattle of the Himalayan and Kumaon foot-hills,
Lohani (Frontier Province), and Afghan breeds.
In addition there are a number of isolated breeds, such as the Dhanni of
the North Punjab, Ponwar of the United Provinces, and Gaolao of the Central
Provinces, which cannot be fitted into any of the above groups, and are
probably of more recent origin.
This question of the origin of our domestic animals is always fascinating,
and we are fortunate in India in being able to produce definite evidence that
the same type of Zebu, which is found throughout the Indian sub-continent
to-day, was in use as a domestic animal at the time of the ancient Indus-valley
civilization represented by the ruined city of Mohan-jo-daro, which is estimated
to date back to 3000 B.C.
L. H. Shirlaw [5] points out that there were actually two types of cattle
in existence at the time of this civilization, ' a massive large-horned humped
form and a smaller form with short horns which may possibly have been hump-
less '. It is also stated that the latter type is found only in the upper strata
of the Mohan-jo-daro site, but there are abundant remains of humped bulls in
every stratum. The author also quotes Sir John Marshall, who was in charge