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This line of country, which in every part that I hare visited forms 

 a line of demarcation between the Concan and the Deccan, and con- 

 sequently stretches in point of length over a wide extent, is in point 

 of breadth inconsiderable, occupying no larger space than must ne- 

 cessarily be covered by a mountain range with broken and irregular 

 spurs. As you will perceive from my description, it is a country 

 which one would scarcely think adapted to huge cattle like the Bison, 

 but they do inhabit it, and hold to it most rigorously, as I never saw 

 or heard of one either in the Concan or the Deccan. Occasionally they 

 make their appearance on the borders of this country, and do great 

 damage to the small fields of corn which the natives cultivate on the 

 very verge of the forest ; choosing, as I gather from the natives, the 

 night for their operations ; but their usual abode is in the depths 

 of the Ghaut country, as not only are they invariably, when sought 

 for by sportsmen, found in the very depth of the thick forest, but 

 constant traces of them may there be met with ; as for instance, 

 crossing a little open glade in the forest, covered, as is sometimes the 

 case, with nothing but a long tliin dry grass, it is not unusual to see 

 half a dozen patches where the squashed and flattened grass shows 

 where the Bison has been sleeping ; and the natives frequently point 

 out a bed of a greener and more delicate kind of grass, and show 

 where it has been cropped by the grazing Bison. 



The usual method of hunting these beasts is to take up a post 

 commanding some narrow pass, and throwing from fifty to a hundred 

 beaters into the forest, to form them into a cordon, which driving 

 the Bison before it, contracts as it approaches the pass and forces 

 them through it under the fire of the hunters. Tlie Bison, when 

 stirred but not as yet much alarmed by the distant line of beaters, 

 are usually seen plodding along with a slow heavy gait, and with 

 their heads carried low. When under these circumstances I have 

 been able to obtain a clear view of them, they have struck me by a 

 resemblance in general figure to the North American Bison, of which 

 I have seen specimens in England : they have a heavy, compact, 

 short-necked, thick-headed look, which distinguishes them most 

 strongly from the long-faced dolorous-visaged tame buffiilo cf India. 

 When disturbed by the closer approach of the beaters, they break 

 into a heavy lumbering trot, which under circumstances of violent 

 alarm, they exchange for a furious rush, in which they go straight 

 through the jungle as a horse might burst through standing corn, 

 making the forest ring again with the sound of crashing boughs ; 

 and, as they cleave their way through the dense masses of bush, 

 making their progress visible by a long track of waving branches 

 tossing above them, like the wake of a ship at sea. I have been 

 posted on the ridge of a hill so far away from the Bison that they 

 looked, when I caught occasional glimpses of them, no bigger than 

 terrier dogs, and yet have heard the incessant crashing of the jungle 

 quite loud as the game moved to and fro. 



They have a great reputation for ferocity amongst both the English 

 sportsmen and the native hunters ; and this reputation is in some 

 degree borne out by the fact, that within no very great number of 



No. CCXLIV. — Proceedings of the Zoological Society. 



