446 Zoological Society. 



constant traces of them may there be met with ; as for instance, 

 crossing a httle open glade in the forest, covered, as is sometimes the 

 case, with nothing but a long thin dry grass, it is not unusual to see 

 half a dozen patches where the squashed and flattened grass shows 

 where the Bison has been sleeping ; and the natives frequently point 

 out a bed of a greener and more delicate kind of grass, and show 

 where it has been cropped by the grazing Bison. 



The usual method of hunting these beasts is to take up a post 

 commanding some narrow pass, and throwing from fifty to a hundred 

 beaters into the forest, to form them into a cordon, which driving 

 the Bison before it, contracts as it approaches the pass and forces 

 them through it under the fire of the hunters. The Bison, when 

 stirred but not as yet much alarmed by the distant line of beaters, 

 are usually seen plodding along with a slow heavy gait, and with 

 their heads carried low. When under these circumstances I have 

 been able to obtain a clear view of them, they have struck me by a 

 resemblance in general figure to the North American Bison, of which 

 I have seen specimens in England : they have a heavy, compact, 

 short-necked, thick-headed look, which distinguishes them most 

 strongly from the long-faced dolorous-visaged tame buffalo of India. 

 When disturbed by the closer approach of the beaters, they break 

 into a heavy lumbering trot, which under circumstances of violent 

 alarm, they exchange for a furious rush, in which they go straight 

 through the jungle as a horse might burst through standing corn, 

 making the forest ring again with the sound of crashing boughs ; 

 and, as they cleave their way through the dense masses of bush, 

 making their progress visible by a long track of waving branches 

 tossing above them, like the wake of a ship at sea. I have been 

 posted on the ridge of a hill so far away from the Bison that they 

 looked, when I caught occasional glimpses of them, no bigger than 

 terrier dogs, and yet have heard the incessant crashing of the jungle 

 quite loud as the game moved to and fro. 



They have a great reputation for ferocity amongst both the English 

 sportsmen and the native hunters ; and this reputation is in some 

 degree borne out by the fact, that within no very great number of 

 years, and within a limited extent of country, two English officers 

 have been killed by them. Nevertheless, although I do not at all 

 doubt that they can be on occasion savage and dangerous, I can say 

 from experience that their ferocity is much exaggerated. I have 

 seen a good many Bison, but never yet saw one that did not show a 

 strong desire to avoid me if it possibly could. That when wounded 

 or finding their line of retreat blocked up, they will charge, there is no 

 kind of doubt ; but excepting these extreme cases, they will usually, 

 on catching sight of a man, give a start with a little back-jump, much 

 as an antelope does when catching sight of a startling object, and 

 then plunging into the thickest forest, hold their course in the direc- 

 tion which will carry them the farthest and soonest out of the neigh- 

 bourhood of human beings. 



They usually go in small herds of four or five, though I have I 

 think seen as many as seven or eight together. Though, from its 



