196 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
territories under the rule of the Maharaja of Kash- 
mir, and occurring in numbers only in Chinese Tibet 
and certain other districts in the heart of central 
Asia. The typical bantin, again, owing to the 
damage it inflicts on the plantation and other crops 
of the planters, is stated to be yearly becoming 
scarcer in Java; while, as Upper Burma and the 
adjacent territories become more opened out and 
accessible, the same late will be shared by its local 
representative, the tsaine. As to the prospects and 
present condition of the tamarao in the Philippines 
and the anoa in Celebes, information appears to be 
lacking. 
All this points to the conclusion that, except in 
the more inaccessible and commercially valueless 
districts, wild cattle are a group destined to disappear 
more or less completely from the greater part of the 
earth's surface in the course of time. They have, in 
fact, everything against them. Their magnificent 
trophies are coveted — and who shall say unjustifiably 
coveted ? — by the sportsman ; their skins bear a 
high commercial value as a source of leather; they 
are prone to be swept away in thousands or millions 
by the appearance of rinderpest ; they inflict untold 
damage on cultivated crops wherever they are 
numerous ; and, lastly, their occurrence in large herds, 
such as those in which the American bison collected 
up to the middle of last century, is absolutely and 
completely incompatible with the settlement and 
cultivation of the country. 
This has now, in spite of a former chorus of lamen- 
tations, been practically admitted by all capable of 
forming an opinion of any real value in the case of 
the American bison ; and even writers who were at 
