310 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



them from the bulls, and you will mistake a cow for a bull, 

 but one or two misadventures of this kind will disgnst you, and 

 you will be more careful and leara what a really good bull 

 is. The natives occasionally kill them with a poison ed arrow, 

 but they seldom shikar them. Tigers seldom kill them. I only 

 kuow or one instance. Foot and mouth disease and other epidemics 

 destroy large numbers. Within the last tern years there were 

 bison in Salsette within 30 miles of Bombay, i believe there are 

 none there now. I was told the last herd" h%d died of cattle disease. 

 They were formerly plentiful in the ghats near Khandalla. I have 

 in my possession at home the head of a very fine bull (the measure- 

 ments I have not got by me), the last one killed some 33 years 

 ago at the foot of tbe ghats below Khandalla. As long as the 

 highlands of Central India and the enormous tracts of hill and 

 jungle in Southern India exist, I have no doubt that bison will 

 give sport to our successors long after we have gone to the happy 

 hunting grounds. When you have secured your trophy, if you do 

 not take care, the horns will be spoilt by a small kind of caterpillar 

 or grub. It is white in colour aud has a large head. It bores a 

 cylindrical hole from the inside of the horn to the surface, and 

 in the hole thus made spins a cocoon, emerging- ultimately in what 

 looks like a beetle. It spins very rapidly. I hare watched them 

 at work. They begin to spin at the surface of the horn; if you 

 destroy their work, the top of the hole will be covered again in half 

 a minute. Tbe best preventive is to remove tbe horn from the 

 bony core, but you cannot always get an old bulPs horns off. In 

 that case pour boiling water or kerosine oil down between the 

 horn and core. I have never tried beating for bison, and should 

 think it was poor sport. Find the tracks yourself, track him 

 yourself for miles, and kill him with a single bullet in a fair stalk 3 

 and the incidents of the day will never fade from your memory. 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



].— BELIEF IN THE BIS-COBRA. 



My servant came running this morning to say that there was a Targe bis-cobra 

 in a shesum tree just outside the house. All hands assembled at a respectful 

 distance from the tree and evidently were very jumpy. Going close, I found a 

 largish Monitor on one of the boughs trying to get away from a squirrel. WheD 



