THE MaHaDEO HILLS. 105 



the Central Provinces of India all these conditions are unfor- 

 tunately still present over enormous tracts of country. 

 Thousands of square miles in the central range, much of 

 which will one day be reclaimed to the uses of the plough, 

 are now the very perfection of a preserve for the bison. 



Perhaps he is nowhere more completely at home than in 

 the Mahadeo hills. There, as a general rule, he will be found 

 to frequent at any season the highest elevation at which he 

 can then find food and water. During the cold season suc- 

 ceeding the monsoon they remain much about the higher 

 plateaux, at an elevation of 2000 to 3000 feet, where they 

 graze all night on the bamboos that clothe their sides, and on 

 the short succulent grasses fringing the springs and streams 

 usually found in the intervening hollows. They generally 

 pass the day on the tops of the plateaux, lying down in secure 

 positions under the shade of small trees, where they chew the 

 cud and sleep. Their object in lying under trees seems more 

 the concealment thus afforded to their large and dark-coloured 

 bodies than shelter from the sun, as the shade is seldom dense, 

 and a secure windy position is always secured irrespective of the 

 sun. I have observed that single animals always lie looking 

 down wind, leaving the up wind direction to be guarded by 

 their keen sense of smell ; and, in my experience, it is far 

 easier to baffle their sense of vision in a direct approach, than 

 to stalk them down wind, however carefully the approach 

 may be covered. It is extraordinary how difficult it often is 

 to distinguish so strongly coloured an object as a bull bison 

 when thus lying down in the flickering shadow of a tree. 



The colour of the cows is a light chestnut brown in the cold 

 weather, becoming darker as the season advances. The young 

 bulls are a deeper tint of the same colour, becoming, however, 

 much darker as they advance in age, the mature bull being 



