Dear M^r. Darwin.

I took the first opportunity of seeing my friend to find out if I understood him rightly when he told me it was the Arnee that he had found possessed of powers of diving—¹ He tells me that there can be no doubt of its being the animal called Arnee in India, & on shewing me the pairs of Horns—of a wild male & female shot by himself, I have no doubt it is the Bubalus Arna of Horsfield Catalogue of Mammalia in the Museum of the H. E. I. Co.² page 179—and the Bos Arnee of Shaw— between the wild Arnee & the domesticated form—there is hardly any perceptible difference—³ The Wild Bull constantly visits the tame cows, inde⁠⟨⁠ed⁠⟩⁠ often makes himself very troublesome by so doing & it was on the entreaties of some of my friends tenants, to shoot a wild Bull who was in the habit of breaking down fences, that the one of which my friend possesses the Horns was shot—

Another little bit of information is—the tongue of these creatures is a favorite morsel with the Europeans—but during the inundations they are not eaten—& on M^r. D’s tasting one, he found the reason to be, the extremely strong prawn or shrimp flavor of the meat. This is owing to the quantity of Gammari eaten with the grass that the animals dive for, & of which numbers are to be found in the paunch, with the unruminated grass. I hope you will never think I can fancy that finding out any fact, for you, could be a trouble, & that you will think the explanation satisfactory—

The Horns in my museum of B. arnee were named by Hodgson⁴ & it was with these I compared those of Dunlop.

Very truly Yours | E. Perceval Wright