THE NILGAI 
(BOSELAPHUS TRAGOCAMELUS) 
r HE blue bull, as it is also called, is found over a considerable 
portion of India, but not in the extreme south. The old males 
are generally alone, though the cows and calves are sometimes 
seen in herds of ten or a dozen. 
With his high withers and low hindquarters, this is an un- 
gainly beast to look at, and it seems a sad pity that an animal 
of his size should not carry a better trophy. 
Although they do considerable damage to cultivation, the Hindus 
sometimes object to these animals being shot, as they consider them 
belonging to the cow tribe, which they hold sacred. The nilgai is not a 
very sporting beast, and few men who have killed one good specimen 
would ever care to shoot another; but if he can be met with in fairly 
open country and pursued with horse and spear, he gives quite a good 
run. 
Even the most harmless of beasts may turn on the hunter when 
mortally wounded, and I once met a man who told me how he had just 
escaped what he described as the most ignominious of all deaths, from 
a blue bull which he approached, thinking it was dead, and which rose 
and went for him. 
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