The great and small game of India, Burma, and Tibet (1900) (14803650883)

Identifier: greatsmallgameof1900lyde (find matches)
Title: The great and small game of India, Burma, & Tibet
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Lydekker, Richard, 1849-1915
Subjects: Hunting Hunting Hunting Mammals
Publisher: London : R. Ward
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library



Text Appearing Before Image:
very similar in its mode of life to theIndian rhinoceros, being essentially a grazing animal, inhabiting bypreference tall grass-jungles, or reed-brakes, in which it is completelyconcealed, avoiding hills and rocks, and always seeking the neighbour-hood of marshy swamps, in the warm mud of which it delights towallow. Buffaloes are indeed the most water-loving of all cattle,frequently immersing the whole body, and leaving only the headexposed, instead of standing midleg-deep after the fashion of Europeancattle. Never (save for its magnificent horns) a handsome creature, theIndian buffalo looks positively hideous when a thick coat of brown mudhas dried on its hide after a bath in a j/ii7, or swamp. Associating inlarge herds, buffalo feed during the early morning and again at evening,while they pass the greater portion of the day in repose, either quietlychewing the cud or sleeping. When disturbed during his mid-day siesta,an old bull is much more likely to prove an awkward customer than
Text Appearing After Image:
^6 Great and Small Game of India, etc. is one stalked during its feeding hours. In place of their usual haunts,buffalo may occasionally be encountered amid low scrub-jungle, but areseldom if ever seen in tree-forest. The pairing-season is in the autumn,and the calves (of which there are not unfrequently two at a birth)are born in the summer, the period of gestation being ten months. Buffalo may be hunted either by beating with a line of elephants, bytracking on a single elephant, or by walking them up on toot ; the hotseason, in April and June, being the best for the latter description of sport,as the long grass is then dried and broken, or burnt down ; while, as wateris scarce, the animals are obliged to resort to such pools as remain, wheretheir fresh tracks should be carefully looked for by the sportsman. A foot-print measures about 7 inches in length. Buffalo have been known tocharge even before being wounded ; and when they do charge, wounded orunwounded, they generally press the