588 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XII. 



been remarkable but for the fact that at this season of the year the horns of 

 the chital are just mature, and not ready for casting. 



Although as a rule a shy animal, the spotted deer is sometimes very bold, 

 or rather, 1 should say perhaps, foolish. A few days before the occurvence 

 described above T came across a herd of chital, and at once sat down to try 

 and distinguish the stag. The herd, however, consisted entirely of hinds, 

 one of which saw me, and came walking in my direction, gazing intently, 

 and barking at intervals, until within about 40 yards. I then moved on, and 

 the herd followed me for some time, some of its members barking continu- 

 ally. No wonder these animals fall an easy prey to tigers. 



Bison. — I have frequently heard it said, and seen it stated in books, that 

 bison never feod in cultivation, I know a village, however, surrounded by 

 jungle, in the vicinity of which is a considerable area of rice fields, where 

 bison are in the habit of feeding every night during the hot weather. The 

 Gond shikaris take advantage of this and pot the animals from trees on 

 moonlight nights, or when they are leaving the cultivation at dawn, T.ast 

 year an old Gond shikari whom I used to employ was killed by a bison which 

 he had wounded in this manner. I have always found the bison to be a 

 very mild animal, but this old Gond had had a diii'erent experience, for he 

 had been tossed by a wounded bull some years before, and I saw the scars of 

 the injuries he had received on that occasion. Another Gond, a veritable 

 wild man of the woods who was with me this year, told me of an encounter 

 he had seen between a tiger and a great solitary bull bison, in which the 

 latter managed to beat off his antagonist. In a similar encounter, of which 

 I heard some years ago, the bison, a very large bull whose head was shown 

 to me, was killed and partly devoured. His assailant, however, did not 

 escape scot-free, for when subsequently killed by a friend of mine (who, by 

 tlie way, met him one morning, and shot him with a single-barrelled *450 

 express rifle) he was found to have sustained considerable injuries about 

 the head, and I think had one eye gouged out. 



Wild Dogs. — These pests appear to bo growing more numerous every year. 

 This year two of my buffaloes, tied up for tigers, were killed by them. On 

 another occasion one of my buffaloes was killed by a panther. After passing 

 the kill next morning, my shikaries saw the panther going oft' over the hills 

 with a pack of about thirty wild dogs in full cry after him. In the evening 

 I found a wild dog with a small pup feeding on the carcase of the buffalo, 

 but unfortunately made a bad shot and missed the vermin. The same pack 

 of dogs had cleared the whole valley of game, including three tigers which I 

 had hoped to have brought to bag. They kept to the lower end of the valley 

 where the tigers had previously been living and not a mark was to be found, 

 but after some days the biggest of the tigers fortunately came down to the 

 head of the valley, eight miles oft, beyond the range of the red dogs, atid 

 there I shot him. 



