THE GAUR 71 



the shot provided the hunter takes ordinary 

 precautions. I need hardly say that anyone 

 attempting to get up to a bison, whether feeding 

 or not, must take the greatest care to move 

 quietly. A dry twig snapping underfoot will 

 be quite sufficient to scare him. A herd of 

 bison, when feeding, makes far less noise than 

 a solitary bull. Why this should be I don't 

 know; but it certainly is the case, both with 

 bison and tsaing. There is either no grunting 

 at all, or it is so subdued as to be inaudible 

 until one is quite close. 



The advice given in the big-game volume 

 of the Badminton Library as to running after 

 a scared bison, whether he has been fired at or 

 not, is undoubtedly sound ; but other portions 

 of that chapter, interesting as they are, are 

 quite inapplicable to Burma. For instance, the 

 writer, Lieutenant- Colonel Heber Percy, advo- 

 cates riding along the tracks on a pony until 

 close upon the animal. There is no ground that 

 I know of in Burma where this is possible. 

 Again, he says keep a hundred yards behind 

 your trackers. If you did this, your Burman 

 trackers would at once jump to the conclusion 

 that you were afraid, and the tracking would 

 be carried out in a very half-hearted fashion 

 in consequence. But it must be remembered 

 that the writer had done his tracking in India 

 — a very different country to Burma. 



