Jungle By-Ways in India 



when bison tracking ; and although one may 

 often have to follow up the tracks of a herd in the 

 hope of finding a decent bull in it, one is ever 

 ready to rehnquish them for the fresh ones of an 

 old solitary bull. 



The bison or gaur or gayal (Bos gaurus), as dis- 

 tinguished from the gayal or mithan, inhabits, 

 according to Blanford, all the great hilly forest 

 tracts of the Indian Peninsula — Assam, Burma, 

 and the Malay Peninsula. Its extreme north- 

 western habitat is probably the Rajpipla Hills, 

 near Broach. It is not to be found in the grass 

 jungles of the Gangetic plain, except near the 

 Himalaya, and is not found in the fine Terai grass 

 jungles of the United Provinces. In Nepal and 

 eastwards it roams over the great grass jungles at 

 the foot of the Himalaya. South of the Ganges it 

 is present in Chota Nagpur, Orissa, the Northern 

 Circars, the Central Provinces, Hyderabad terri- 

 tories, Mysore, and throughout the Western Ghats. 



The bison inhabits forest or high grass usually 

 in or close to hilly country, and is found either 

 singly, as solitary bulls or dried-up cows, or in 

 herds which may number three or four only, or 

 may total as many as thirty animals or even more. 

 They feed* chiefly on grasses and young bamboo 

 shoots. They cannot be termed browsers, al- 

 though I have found them to eat leaves and even 

 bark. 



Large and heavy as these animals are, they 



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