THE MAHADEO HILLS. 117 



air of a mighty bull just roused is very impressive ; and 

 much to the wild tales of the people in whose neighbour- 

 hood they live, who always dilate on their general 

 ferocity, but can seldom point to an instance of its 

 effects, and who are, moreover, frequently from religious 

 prejudice, desirous of withholding the sportsman from 

 their pursuit. Still there is sufficient evidence on 

 record of the occasional fierce retaliation of the bull 

 bison when w^ounded and closely followed up, in some 

 resulting even in the death of the sportsman, to invest 

 their pursuit with the flavour of danger so attractive to 

 many persons, and to render caution in attacking them 

 highly advisable. The ground on which they are 

 usually met is fortunately favourable for escape if the 

 sportsman be attacked, trees and large rocks being 

 seldom far distant. 



Although a closely -allied bovine, the Gayal of trans- 

 Brahmapiitra India, has for ages been domesticated and 

 used to till the land, all attempts to do so with the 

 subject of my remarks, or even to raise them to maturity 

 in a state of captivity, have failed. After a certain point 

 the wild and retiring nature of the forest race asserts 

 itself, and the young bison pines and dies. It has always 

 struck me as curious why the most difiicult of all 

 animals to reclaim from a wild state are precisely those 

 whose congeners have been already domesticated. The 

 so-called wild horses, and the wild asses, are almost 

 untamable ; so also with the wild sheep and goat, the 

 wild dog and the jungle-fowl. A young tiger or hyena 

 is infinitely easier to bring up and tame than any of 

 these. 



This unconquerable antipathy of the Indian bison to 

 the propinquity of man is slowly but surely contracting 



