But when the first few showers of the rainy season have moistened the dry crackling leaves, and softened the ground so that tracks can be followed, you should start in the early morning so as to catch the beast before he is down for the day (that is, before the sun gets hot, about 9 a.m. according to Sanderson), and getting on the fresh tracks of a solitary bull, follow him up. If your trackers are good, you should soon begin to find signs that you are getting near him (the droppings warm, &c.); you can then dismount from your pony which you have been riding in rear, and close on the trackers with your gun-carrier till they show you the beast. But whether your trackers are good or not, it is quite useless for you to interfere with them unless you have sufficient experience to do the tracking yourself and let the men follow behind. You must take it for granted they are doing their best; the fact of their being on a bison’s trail will ensure their running no undue risk from carelessness, and if you interfere you only confuse and put them out: therefore take Sanderson’s advice, unless they wish you to keep close to them, which they probably will not do, ride your pony comfortably about one hundred yards in rear, till they signal you up. You should then be either pretty close to or within sight of your game. It is assumed that you have two rifles, an 8-bore and a 12-bore, with round bullets; conical bullets are not to be relied on in jungle. Try to approach within sixty yards, and get your first shot in with the 8-bore. Should the bull bolt, run after him at once, whether you have fired or not. Very likely he will pull up after going a short distance and give you a chance. Aim well forward; if you break his shoulder you are more likely to get him than if you take him too far back; keep him in sight as long as you can; if he goes out of sight sit down and smoke a pipe or have breakfast. In any case give him half an hour, then follow up with your trackers, carrying the 12-bore yourself and your gun-carrier the 8-bore. If the track lead into thick stuff, send a man up the first tree you come to, and if he cannot see the animal, work carefully on to the next tree in the direction the track leads, though not necessarily on it. Work clean through the thick patch in this way from tree to tree, till you get to the far side; never mind the trail inside. Should you get through without seeing the beast, try to pick up the trail outside, and if you fail in this go back the way you came to where you lost the track, and try working through it from tree to tree in another direction. If your lines have formed a not too broad angle at the point you left the trail, and you cannot track him outside, the bull should be within the triangle, and if there are no more trees you must follow the trail. Should the jungle happen to be ‘Kharwee,’ the stems of which are about as thick as your finger, growing about six inches apart and eight feet high, you will find it exciting enough. The bull will probably turn short off at an angle just before he lies down, and if he means mischief will be watching his trail; you will then probably get within ten yards of him before you see him, in which case you will be able to realise the sensations of a valiant mouse hunting a man in a stubble-field. At this period in the chase you will naturally have the 8-bore in hand again. Presently the bull will either start up close to you, or you will perceive a black mass on the ground. Your only course then is to fire and lie down on the ground at once; the smoke will prevent your getting in a second barrel, and if the bull charges the smoke he will gallop over you without seeing you. It is not a bad plan to leave a man permanently up the first tree you reach to watch till you have quite done with the cover, as he will probably be able to see where the bull goes if he moves. If the bull is wounded again in thick stuff and again lies down in it, he is probably past doing harm; but still it is advisable to give him the time of another pipe. A man up a tree who can watch the exact place he is lying in is invaluable. Natives at this period of the chase, more particularly the inexperienced ones, invariably get excited and lose their heads, offering to go in and pull the bull out by the tail, and looking upon any precaution taken as a sign of faint-heartedness on the part of the sportsman. If the sportsman gives way to them and allows them to accompany him in the final stalk, he will probably get some fool hurt through disobedience of orders. The last approach to a wounded bull in thick cover should invariably be made alone, or with one gun-bearer, the rest of the men being put up trees.

Solitary bulls, Sanderson declares, are not a bit more savage by disposition than herd bulls, and the instances of their attacking natives when unwounded are almost invariably due to the bull being approached unawares within striking distance in the midst of thick cover.

He narrates a case of a gentleman being killed on the Putney Hills in 1874, but this was through incautiously following a wounded bison into thick cover. In this case the beast went on at once, after killing his victim in his rush. ‘Only in one instance that I know of has a wounded bison turned and gored his victim. I do not even think the solitary bull is more dangerous when wounded and followed up than a member of a herd. I have seen both die without resistance, and both give some trouble.’ An officer on the Head-Quarters Staff at Madras had a very narrow escape from a wounded bull a few years ago, getting knocked down and only escaping by kicking the bull in the face as he tried to gore.

Several writers have noticed that a stag sambur or bull nylghao (apparently it is always a male) occasionally attaches himself to a herd of bison, and that this follower is invariably the wariest and most watchful beast in the herd. Forsyth mentions a bull nylghao in company with a herd of buffaloes. Sanderson states that the bison, after a sharp hunt, gives out an oily sweat, and in this peculiarity it differs from domestic cattle, which never sweat under any exertion. He also says that herd bison retreat at once if intruded upon by man, and never visit patches of cultivation in the jungle; later on, however, he enumerates three varieties of cattle disease to which they are liable, and states that they sometimes contract these diseases by feeding in jungles used by infected domestic cattle. Of course these two statements are not necessarily contradictory, but the writer when shooting in the Western Ghauts found both herd and solitary bison within a mile or two of villages, saw their tracks on patches of ground cleared for crops in the jungle, on one occasion found bison on the side of a hill overhanging a main road on which there was daily a certain amount of traffic and near enough to it to see and hear the passers-by; and there was a range of hills, the plateau on the summit of which was a kind of open down where the village cattle were daily brought to graze, and there were a good many bison in the densely wooded ravines and slopes. The writer had been studying Sanderson’s book before starting, as every sportsman should who desires success in the pursuit of bison, and was particularly struck by the tolerance these herds, at all events, showed to the vicinity of natives.

Measurements

In Assam, Chittagong and Burmah the natives own large numbers of domesticated animals called ‘mithun’ or ‘gayal,’ which are very similar to bison in appearance, but are without the characteristic frontal ridge, and are said to have a small dewlap. Sterndale distinguishes these under the name of Gavæus frontalis, and quotes Dr. F. Buchanan Hamilton and Professor Garrod’s account from Mr. Macrae to the effect that the natives recruit their tame herds by catching and taming wild animals. But both Sanderson and Kinloch, who have hunted in the districts where the tame gayal are numerous for the express purpose of bagging a wild one, declare that such an animal does not exist, that the wild animals in those parts are the same as bison anywhere else, and that the peculiarities of the tame ones are due to domestication and inter-breeding with domestic cattle.

As regards measurements of heads, the same disappointing practice prevails with bison as with buffalo, viz.: measuring from tip to tip of the horns across the forehead, in addition to which (with bison) heads are frequently estimated only as regards the width of splay between the horns, without any reference to their length and girth. This latter measurement is the more misleading, as a deformed head with unnatural lateral sweep is more valued than one with long massive horns which grow closer together. The fairest measurement is length and girth at base of horn only.

XIX. BURMESE WILD OX (Gavæus sondaicus)

Native names: ‘Tsoing,’ Burmah; ‘Banteng,’ Java; (Sterndale). Habitat: Burmah, the Malayan Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo and Java. Blyth says it is domesticated in the Island of Bali.

This animal resembles the gaur in many respects, having the distinctive white stockings, but has no frontal or dorsal ridge. Its horns are more like those of the gayal, but it has not the dewlap of the latter, and it appears to be a much smaller and lighter built animal than either gaur or gayal.

The old bull is black with white stockings and a white patch on each buttock, the cows and young bulls being bright chestnut. There is a stuffed specimen in the British Museum which shows the difference very plainly. The only measurements the writer has been able to obtain are those of the horns.

Measurements

XX. YAK (Poephagus grunniens)

Native names: ‘Donkh,’ ‘Dhong,’ Ladak; ‘Bunchowr,’ Hindi

Wild yak are said to be plentiful throughout Thibet, but at present the Tartars watch their frontier so jealously that it is almost impossible for Europeans to cross with any chance of obtaining sport; particularly as the sportsman’s own Tartar attendants would be the first to endeavour to frustrate any ambitious schemes of exploration. It must be remembered that, not only would they be held responsible by the Leh authorities if anything happened to an Englishman, but, living on the frontier themselves, they naturally like to be on good terms with their neighbours. The valley of Chang Chenmo, north of the Pangong Lake, and the ground between the Niti Pass and the Sutlej, are the only two easily accessible places where yak may be met with. Beyond Chang Chenmo there is said to be good ground on the Karakash, but to cross the Linzinthung plains would require special arrangements, and ponies would have to be taken instead of the ordinary tame yaks on account of the scarcity of grass. An old wild bull yak is a magnificent beast; he is nearly jet black, with a little grey about the muzzle and forehead. Though fifteen hands in height, his legs are short and sturdy. The long shaggy hair which droops from his body reaches down to his knees, and sometimes almost to the ground; and his huge swab of a tail rather adds to than detracts from his beauty. The white tails which are brought for sale are those of tame yaks; a wild bull’s tail is such an unwieldy mass of hair that it is not at all the sort of thing to have flipping round one’s head on a hot evening. Tame yaks have often a good deal of white about them. Wild yaks with white patches have occasionally been shot, but only cows as far as the writer can learn; wild bulls appear always to be black. The Tartars say that these mottled wild yaks are hybrids between the tame bulls, which are turned out to graze on the hills in the summer, and wild cows.

Captain Duff contributes the following interesting account of a successful stalk after yak:

Measurements

In 1866 another sportsman managed to evade the Tartars, and crossing the Sutlej beyond Niti, found a herd of eighty yak, out of which he shot a bull and three cows, one of the latter being piebald.

There is a quaint story from Nepal, that, during the war between the Nepalese and the Thibetans, Jung Bahadur, finding his army very short of food, referred the case to the chief priests in Khatmandu, who decided that yak were deer, and not cattle at all, as their tails were different, and so might safely be killed and eaten by the pious Nepalese.

XXI. BUFFALO (Bubalus arni)

Native names generally: ‘Ban Bhains,’ ‘Arná’ the male, ‘Arni’ the female; in Bengal, ‘Mains’

The buffalo is found in Nepal, and extends eastward through Assam to Burmah. It is plentiful in the Sunderbuns, in the Central Provinces, and in Ceylon, but is not found, according to Sanderson, in Southern India. Forsyth gives 80° as the extreme western limit of buffaloes in Central India, and says that they are not found north of the Nerbudda river.

The wild buffalo only differs from the tame one in being slightly larger and more uniform in colour (tame ones are of many shades, and have often a good deal of white about them, in fact albinos are not uncommon), and in having regular white stockings, which the tame ones may or may not have. The horns are more symmetrical and larger. In the high grass jungles of the Terai and Assam, buffaloes are generally shot off elephants, and Kinloch notices ‘the strong sweet bovine scent’ emitted by a herd. In the Sunderbuns and parts of Lower Bengal they are occasionally shot out of boats when the country is flooded. The sport is described as magnificent, but requires a fever-proof constitution.

In the Central Provinces, however, the ground is more open; there buffaloes can be stalked on foot, and Captain Forsyth gives an account of a sparkling episode when shooting buffaloes from horseback.

When pursuing them on foot, the best time for sport is in April and May, when a good deal of the grass has been burnt and water is comparatively scarce. The best way of finding the animals is to look for fresh tracks near pools of water, and follow them up. The plan recommended for bison, of sending the trackers on ahead, should be adopted if possible.

Captain Lamb gives the following interesting account of a stalk: