THE HOLLOW-HORNED RUMINANTS 



217 



THE CONGO BUFFALO 



This is a very small race, the height at the shoulder being about 3 feet 6 inches. The 

 shape of the horns varies, but they are wrinkled at the bases and flattened, and turn upwards, 

 ending in thin, sharp tips. The hair is bright reddish yellow. It is entirely a West African 

 species. Sir Samuel Baker records an instance in which his brother was nearly killed by a 

 small West African buffalo, probably one of the species in question. It is said to be less 

 gregarious than the Cape buffalo, and usually found in pairs. 



THE INDIAN OR WATER-BUFFALO 



Very great interest attaches to this animal, if only from the fact that it is evidently a 

 species domesticated directly from the wild stock. It therefore deserves consideration both as 

 a wild and as a domesticated animal. It is found wild in the swampy jungles at the foot of 

 the Himalaya, in the Ganges Delta, and in the jungles of the Central Provinces ; also, it is 

 believed, in the jungles of West Assam. Like the African species, it is an" animal of great 

 size and strength, with short brown hair, white fetlocks, and immense long, narrow, flattened 

 horns. It is almost aquatic by preference, passing many hours of each day wallowing in the 

 water, or standing in any deep pool with only the tips of its nostrils and its horns out of 

 the water. By general consent it is the most dangerous of Indian animals after the tiger. A 

 buffalo bull when wounded will hunt for its enemy by scent as persistently as a dog hunting 

 for a rabbit. A writer in Country Life lately gave an account of a duel between himself, 

 armed with a small and light rifle, and a buffalo bull, in which the latter hunted him for 

 more than an hour, each time being driven off by a shot from the light rifle, and each time 

 returning to the search, until it was killed. Sir Samuel Baker, when he first went to Ceylon, 

 found the buffaloes practically in possession of the meadows round a lake in the neighbourhood 

 of his quarters, and waged a war of extermination against the bulls, which were very dangerous. 



AMERICAN BISON 



Notice the difference in the fore and bind quarters of this animal and the European representative of the same group. 

 28 



(See page aid.) 



