THE INDIAN BISON. 295 



'''buffalo." Ill tlie Mav number of the same Magazine for 1831 

 a correspondent gives an account of bison, and remarks "I allude 

 to Bison, which some maintain to be a wild buffalo and others the 

 common cow in its natural state, from both of which animals it is 

 quite distinct." The first sporting works which, as far as I know, 

 dealt with bison shooting, are the " Old Forest Ranger " and ff My 

 Indian Journal," both by Campbell of Skipness. Since then numerous 

 sportsmen have described their experiences of bison in print. The best 

 and most reliable accounts to my mind are to be found in the " Hio-h 

 lands of Central India" and Mr. Sanderson's book. None of the 

 illustrations of bison in any of the published books give even an 

 approximately good representation of what a bison is like. The best 

 I think, is the one in " My Indian Journal," but it errs in exaggerating 

 the thicknes ef the withers. The legs also are wrongly coloured. 

 They are shown as being white from below the knee, whereas in 

 truth the white stockings on the legs begin from the top of the 

 knee, an in the hind legs from the point of the hock. The same 

 mistake is made in the picture of the Bull Bison in Mr. Sanderson's 

 book. The white legs are correctly shown hi the illustrations in 

 the "Highlands of Central India" and in "Seonee." I have several 

 photos here of bison which prove what I say as to this. The only 

 other ruminants that I know of with white legs are the wild buffalo 

 and the old buck of the Sinde ibex (Ca<pra agagrus) , the white of their 

 leovs beam in exactly the same spot, which is a curious circumstance. 

 Jerdon's description of the bison, which I need not repeat here, is 

 a very good one, except that he says " legs from the knee downwards 

 white," whereas it ought to be u from above the knee downwards." 

 There is a stuffed bull and cow bison in the Natural History Museum 

 at South Kensington, but they are poor specimens. In genera 

 appearance the younger bulls look a dark coffee brown the old bulls 

 look jet black. An old cow also sometimes looks almost black. A very 

 young calf is a light yellow, though they soon get brown. The most 

 noticeable feature about the bison is the extraordinary development 

 of the spinous processes of the dorsal vertebrae, usually known as the 

 dorsal ridge ; the spinous processes continue all along the lumber 

 vertebras, but are much smaller behind the termination of the dorsal 

 ridge. The dorsal ridge is formed by a row of single bones sprino-iog 

 firom the back-bone immediately behind the junction of each pair 

 of ribs of which the Indian bison has 13 pairs. They slope backwards. 

 The height of the dorsal ridge at the highest point above the back- 



