168 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



pelled in self-defence to fire at buffaloes and wild-hog, losing 

 thus the objects of our chase, through the attacks of animals 

 not sought by us. 



It is somewhat extraordinary that during the four or 

 five years I shot over the jungles just described, I never once 

 met with a tiger, and twice only with panthers ; nor were 

 their foot-prints at all common ; and yet these coverts, swarm- 

 ing with their prey, appeared suitable in every respect for 

 tigers, and in a lesser degree for panthers, which rarely inhabit 

 low swampy thickets, subject to fortnightly inundation by 

 salt water during the spring tides, almost all the year round ; 

 and yet in precisely similar ground in Saugor Island I have 

 seen tigers' foot-prints almost as thick as those of spotted 

 deer and wild-hog. 



The buffaloes in these salt tracts were less in bulk and 

 stature than those which roamed over the " churs " and 

 islands of the Megna and Brahmapootra rivers, and they 

 carried smaller horns ; they were quite as vicious however, 

 and not prone to flight when they got the wind. Their horns 

 were not only shorter from root to tip, but more curved, so 

 that out of several hundred heads taken by me in that 

 country, I do not think half a dozen were preserved as trophies. 



The finest pairs of bull's and cow's horns in my pos- 

 session, measure, the former nine and a half, the latter eleven 

 and three quarters feet, both having been obtained on the 

 Megna " churs." The cow's horns are somewhat light, the 

 bull's are extremely stout, and the skull at the top between 

 the base of the horns, is more like granite than mere bone. 

 The bull which once carried the latter, was an old ash-coloured 

 monster of immense height and bulk, on which two bullets 

 from a smooth bore well placed just behind the shoulder at a 

 short range, appeared to make no impression ; my stalk 

 having been rendered easy by the presence of a herd of tame 

 cows, to whom he had come on a complimentary visit. As the 

 bull retired into high reeds without leaving more than a few 

 drops of blood on his tracks about sunset, and as there were 

 in them beasts more dangerous than himself, he was not 



