INDIAN SHOOTING 245 



Putney Hills in 1874, but this was through incautiously following 

 a wounded bison into thick cover. In this case the beast went 

 on at once, after killing his victim in his rush. ' Only in one 

 instance that I know of has a wounded bison turned and 

 gored his victim. I do not even think the solitary bull is more 

 dangerous when wounded and followed up than a member of a 

 herd. I have seen both die without resistance, and both give 

 some trouble.' An officer on the Head- Quarters Staff at 

 Madras had a very narrow escape from a wounded bull a few 

 years ago, getting knocked down and only escaping by kicking 

 the bull in the face as he tried to gore. 



Several writers have noticed that a stag sambur or bull 

 nylghao (apparently it is always a male) occasionally attaches 

 himself to a herd of bison, and that this follower is invariably 

 the wariest and most watchful beast in the herd. Forsyth 

 mentions a bull nylghao in company with a herd of buffaloes. 

 Sanderson states that the bison, after a sharp hunt, gives out 

 an oily sweat, and in this peculiarity it differs from domestic 

 cattle, which never sweat under any exertion. He also says 

 that herd bison retreat at once if intruded upon by man, and 

 never visit patches of cultivation in the jungle ; later on, how- 

 ever, he enumerates three varieties of cattle disease to which 

 they are liable, and states that they sometimes contract these dis- 

 eases by feeding in jungles used by infected domestic cattle. Of 

 course these two statements are not necessarily contradictor}', 

 but the writer when shooting in the Western Ghauts found 

 both herd and solitary bison within a mile or two of villages, saw 

 their tracks on patches of ground cleared for crops in the 

 jungle, on one occasion found bison on the side of a hill over- 

 hanging a main road on which there was daily a certain amount 

 J of traffic and near enough to it to see and hear the passers-by ; 

 ! and there was a range of hills, the plateau on the summit of 

 ^ which was a kind of open down where the village cattle were 

 daily brought to graze, and there were a good many bison in 

 the densely wooded ravines and slopes. The writer had been 

 studying Sanderson's book before starting, as every sportsman 



