242 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATUBAL JUST. SOCJETY, lol. XXI. 



of game on these hills has never been ap]proached, nnich less equalled, 

 told me that all bison had dewlaps. These diametrically opposed observ- 

 ations led me to svispect that there might be two varieties of the animal, 

 one with and the other without dewlaps, and this idea was strongly con- 

 firmed, when I found to my surprise that the Muduvars on these hills 

 recognised both varieties and had a different name for each, one meaning 

 'Cow Cattle' and the other 'Buifalo Cattle.' They even speak of herds 

 living apart and occupying different parts of the country. Still, the 

 difficulties in the way of accepting finally, and as a fact, that two different 

 varieties exist in such close proximity without intermixing, are so great 

 that I cannot say that my mind is made up on the subject. I must give 

 you just a couple more references. Long after the question was mooted 

 Mr. C. E. M. Russell wrote a book in 1910, called ' Bullet and Shot, ' in 

 which he says : — ' Although, as a rule, a Bison has no deiolap, the first bull 

 J ever bagged had a xoell-defined one. Caft. (now Col.) W. (late of the J^ord 

 O. L. I.) ivho was zvith one, and who had shot a very large number of Bison ivas 

 greatly struck by the dewlap carried by this animal, a solitary bull unth a very 

 fair head, and he called my attention to it.'' 



Mr. Stuart Baker, in an article well worth study, which he contributed 

 to the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. XV, No. 2, 

 says on page 236, that he considers the dewlap merely an individual 

 characteristic, and while this may be true, it will be curious if we find 

 that other characteristics always accompany the dewlap, such as, for 

 instance, the shape of the horns, and the ram-nosed profile of the 

 face. 



I have dwelt a long time on the subject of the dewlap, because it is 

 not yet a settled question, and the accepted authorities have still to be put 

 right in the matter. More particularly it should be noted if dewlapped 

 bison are ram-nosed, and those without dewlaps straight-nosed, and if 

 there is any difference in the shape of the horns, or in the breadth of the 

 skull. Bison should be carefully observed with the telescope, and when 

 possible with the unassisted eye, before stalking or shooting them, because 

 the way a beast falls makes it sometimes difficult to see whether the dewlap 

 is present or not. 



Another much disputed point is the colour of the eye, query, 

 does it vary ? And the ' white stocking ' has been incorrectly observed 

 by Sanderson and others. Sanderson indeed makes two mistakes 

 in one sentence, he writes ' the legs beloiu the knee downwards, as also 

 the forehead, are of a dirty white colour, ' and the beautiful illustrations 

 in his book bear out these wrong descriptions ; the white stocking com- 

 mences from above the knees as I have already told ^ou, and the forehead 

 lis not of the same colour at all. As regards the size of heads, which will 

 interest sportsmen more than others, 1 will not s&y nmch because I have 



