100 
damage among cultivation. They are generally to be found in herds, varying in number 
from four or five to twenty, and composed of both sexes; “but occasionally small parties 
of old Blue Bulls, and even solitary bulls, are to be met with. In places where they 
are not disturbed, especially in some of the Native States, Nilgai are absurdly tame, but 
in districts where they are much molested they become extremely shy and wary. It 
must not therefore be supposed that they can always be easily shot, but they afford such 
a poor trophy that, as already mentioned, they are not much sought after. When they 
can be found sufficiently far from thick cover, they may be speared, and they then show 
capital sport; as they will probably lead a well-mounted horseman a chase of several 
miles. On hard ground I doubt if a cow Nilgai could be speared by a solitary hunter ; 
the bull, being much heavier, is more easily ridden down. 
Fig. 98. 
Skull and horns of an adult male Nilgai. 
(Brit. Mus.) 
“The flesh of a cow Nilgai is occasionally excellent, and the tongue and marrow-bones 
are supposed to be delicacies. They are, however, hardly worth shooting, except when 
one is in want of meat for Mahomedan servants: Hindoos, of course, will not touch 
the flesh.” 
The Nilgai does well in captivity, and, as we have already mentioned, 
several of the original descriptions of this animal by the older writers were 
based on specimens brought alive to Europe. In 1824 both sexes of the 
Nilgai were well figured by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and F. Cuvier in their 
