Game Animals of India, etc. 



Tirhut, form some of the favourite haunts of the wild 

 Indian buffalo ; but the animal is also to be met with 

 in many other parts of the peninsula, as, for instance, 

 on the maritime plains of Orissa and Midnapur, as well 

 as on the grass-lands of the eastern portions of the 

 Central Provinces, especially in Mandla, Raipur, 

 Sambulpur, and Bastar, whence it extends at least as 

 far south as the Godaveri and Pranhita valleys. Wild 

 buffaloes are also found in the northern districts of 

 Ceylon, and in Burma and the Malay countries ; but 

 whether the latter are aboriginally wild is not easy to 

 determine. Both are referred to in the sequel. 



The arna (to use a term properly restricted to the 

 male as applicable to both sexes) is very similar in its 

 mode of life to the Indian rhinoceros, being a grazing 

 animal, inhabiting by preference tall grass-jungles, or 

 reed-brakes, in which it is completely concealed, 

 avoiding hills and rocks, and always seeking the 

 neighbourhood of marshy swamps, in the warm mud of 

 which it delights to wallow. Buffaloes are indeed the 

 most water-loving of all cattle, frequently immersing 

 their whole bodies and leaving only their heads exposed, 

 instead of standing midleg-deep after the fashion of 

 European cattle. Never (save for its magnificent 

 horns) a handsome creature, the Indian buffalo looks 

 positively hideous when a thick coat of brown mud has 

 dried on its hide after a bath in a jhil^ or swamp. 

 Associating in large herds, buffaloes feed during the early 

 morning and again at evening, while they pass the 

 greater portion of the day in repose, either quietly 

 chewing the cud or sleeping. When disturbed during 

 the midday siesta, an old bull is much more likely to 

 prove an awkward customer than is one stalked during 

 its feedino; hours. In place of their usual haunts, 

 buffaloes may occasionally be encountered amid low 

 scrub-jungle, but are seldom if ever seen in tree-forest. 

 The pairing-season is in the autumn, and the calves 

 (of which there are not unfrequently two at a birth) are 



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