98 



years, and within a limited extent of country, two English officers 

 have been killed by them. Nevertheless, although I do not at all 

 doubt that they can be on occasion savage and dangerous, I can say 

 from experience that their ferocity is much exaggerated. I have 

 seen a good many Bison, but never yet saw one that did not show a 

 strong desire to avoid me if it possibly could. That when wounded 

 or finding their line of retreat blocked up, they will charge, there is no 

 kind of doubt ; but excepting these extreme cases, they will usually, 

 on catching sight of a man, give a start with a little back-jump, much 

 as an antelope does when catching sight of a startling object, and 

 then plunging into the thickest forest, hold their course in the direc- 

 tion which will carry them the farthest and soonest out of the neigh- 

 bourhood of human beings. 



They usually go in small herds of four or five, though I have I 

 think seen as many as seven or eight together. Though, from its 

 great size, the Bison is not a difficult animal to hit, it is by no means 

 an easy animal to bring down. One shot, accurately placed behind 

 the shoulder, will bring him down never to rise again ; but you might 

 as well fire into a hay-stack as hit him anywhere else. And even 

 when brought down and brought to the last gasp by a well-directed 

 shot, the tenacity with which he holds on to the small remains of 

 life is wonderful. I have fired at a fallen Bison with the muzzle of 

 the gun within a foot of his head, and yet he kicked, and before 

 dying rolled himself quite over ; I remember once putting my gun 

 so close to the back of the head, just behind the horns, that the hair 

 smoked from the flash of the powder, and still the animal breathed 

 for some time. 



The natives, though they hold the ferocity of the Bison in con- 

 siderable respect, yet do not seem to consider him an animal of very 

 acute perception. I remember a " shikarry " or native huntsman 

 pointing out to me a patch of long thin grass lying close by the side 

 of a small path across a hill top, and affording nothing that I should 

 have considered very good concealment, and telling me that I might 

 safely on emergency lie down in it and let the Bison pass along the 

 path. I forget whether it was at this very spot, or at one precisely 

 like it, that one of my beaters put this stratagem into practice and 

 allowed the animal to pass close beside him. 



The flesh is I think the finest beef I ever tasted. The natives of 

 " Caste," holding the Bison in reverence as a species of Cow, refuse 

 to eat him, and even in some cases refuse to show him to the hunter, 

 though their reluctance to this last may generally be overcome by 

 money. The out-caste tribes, those whom people in England call 

 "Pariahs," have no such scruples, and the instant that a Bison is 

 killed light a fire by the carcass and sit down and gorge themselves. 



When I was in India I tried to get one or more Bison Calves for 

 the Zoological Society, and offered the natives what to them were 

 large sums of money if they would bring me one. They never suc- 

 ceeded ; partly from the real difficulty of the undertaking, still more 

 I fancy from the unwiUingness of the Hindoo to do anvthing unusual 

 or contrary to " custom ;" they reflected, I do not doubt, that their 



