THE MAHADEO HILLS. Ill 



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 its range, 

 and probably diminishing its numbers. Gradually cultivation 

 is extending into the valleys that everywhere penetrate these 

 hills ; and the grazing of cattle, which extends far ahead of 

 the regularly settled tracts, is pushing the wild bull before it 

 into the remotest depths of the hills. I have, in a compara- 

 tively brief acquaintance with these hills, myself known con- 

 siderable areas where bison used to be plentiful almost entirely 

 cleared of these animals. Other wild beasts retire more slowly 

 before the incursions of man, partly subsisting as they do on 

 the products of his labour. The tiger who finds himself sud- 

 denly in the middle of herds of cattle merely changes his 

 diet to meet the situation, and preys on cattle instead of wild 

 pigs and deer. Even deer seldom live entirely in the deep 

 forest, but hang on the outskirts of cultivation, and, mainly 

 subsisting on it, need not materially decrease in numbers so 

 long as there remain uncleared tracts to furnish a retreat 

 when pressed. But the bison admits of no compromise. I 

 have never heard of his visiting fields even when he lives 

 within reach ; he never interbreeds with tame cattle ; and the 

 axe of the clearer and the low of domestic cattle are a sign 

 to him, as to the traditional backwoodsman, to move " further 

 West." It may be that the time is not far distant when the 

 tracts now being marked out, to remain for all time as re- 

 serves for the supply of forest produce to the country, will 

 be the only refuge for these wild cattle, as has been the case 

 with the bison and the wild bull of Europe. 



On the day appointed for our grand hunt I started early, 



