THE INDIAN WILD BUFFALO. 49 



night. Next morning there were no fresh tracks at the tank though the 

 old tracks were plentiful. I went off to look for him, and having found 

 his fresh tracks, came up to him, in the course of time, lying on his 

 side with a crow on the top of him- — he was quite dead. There was 

 no wound on him and he was quite fresh, having died only a few 

 hours before. He was a small bull and had apparently been afflicted 

 with diarrhoea. There are two kinds of solitary bulls. One, an old one, 

 with a rugged head ; the other, a young one with small horns, not 

 worth shooting. You cannot always tell from the tracks whether the 

 bull has a good head or not, and it is rather dispiriting after a long 

 track to come up to a bull not worth shooting. The same thing- 

 occurs in trackino- a herd. There is often no bull worth shootins; in it. 

 At first, of course, all heads look enormous, but when you know what a 

 good head is, there is no satisfaction whatever in killing an inferior 

 head. I once tracked a bull from 6 a.m. to 5-SO p.m. before I saw 

 him and then let him go as not good enough. Strange to say, I 

 picked up this one's tracks a mile to the west of my tent. He made a 

 long round, and when I saw and left him he was to the east of my 

 tent, and my tent was in sight. I had no idea where I was and 

 fancied I was miles away. The length of this track was, I fancy, 

 occasioned by my having commenced on a track of the previous 

 evening. 



That tigers occasionally attack buffalo is certain. An old solitary bull 

 I shot was deeply scored on the rump by the clavvs and teeth of a tiger 

 that had fastened on him behind. The wounds were not healed. 

 Another time when tracking a herd I came on the freshly-killed and 

 partly-eaten carcase of a calf about eighteen months old that had been 

 killed by a tiger. The tiger probably had seized it as it lagged behind, 

 as there were no signs of the herd being alarmed, the tracks proceeding 

 leisurely onwards. I returned to sit over this carcase in the evening, 

 but in the mean while the vultures had eaten it. I moved the remains 

 a few yards into an open spot and placed alongside them the fresh 

 head of a solitary bull I had shot that day ; but the stupid tiger when 

 it cam.e just after dark walked to the place where he had left the kill, 

 gave two or three sniffs and grunts and walked away. I 

 do not think tigers have much sense of smell. If you move 

 a kill a few yards, the tiger when he returns and does not 



