I suppose, taken the lens for the glare of the
eye of some new kind of tiger. The sudden change in the appearance of the
bull was described to me as being most remarkable, for as he grazed
quietly along he appeared to be one of the most harmless and domestic of
animals, while the moment the sight of the camera fell on his astonished
vision he was at once transformed into the wildest looking animal
conceivable.

It is difficult to believe that big game in remote spots can perceive
whether a man means to harm them or not, but it is remarkable that when on
his way to the jungle alluded to, the photographer passed two sambur deer
in the long grass, and at no great distance away, and saw them still lying
there on his return. A bear was also rolling and grunting in the jungle
close to him as he was waiting for the bull. On his return to the hut (put
up for the occasion about a mile away) he was amused to find the native
servant I had sent with him seated between two roasting fires which he
imagined, and perhaps not without reason, would prevent his being attacked
by a tiger. During the absence of my amateur photographer either a tiger
or panther had passed close to the hut.

The photographer returned to the swamp on the following morning, but no
bull arrived, and I gave up the attempt to obtain a photograph of a bison.
But it is time now to describe the bison.

The Indian bison (_Gavoeus Gaurus_, sometimes called the Gaur) is the
largest member in the world of the ox tribe. It is quite free from mane or
shaggy hair of any kind. The cows are of a dark brown, while in mature and
old bulls the colour approaches to black. The legs from the knee downwards
are of a dirty white (I once saw two bison with apparently blue legs, the
colour being caused by standing on ashes, and this gave them a very
remarkable appearance), and so is the forehead. The bison has no hump. It
has a marked peculiarity in the shape of the back from the dorsal ridge
running with a slight upward slope to about the middle of the back and
then dropping suddenly towards the rump. Mr. Sanderson has never shot a
bull more than six feet in height at the shoulder (if measured at the top
of the dorsal ridge the height would of course be more), but Jerdon the
naturalist, quoting Elliot (the late Sir Walter, a very careful observer)
mentions six feet one-and-a-half inch as the height of one. I have
generally found that an average sized bull is six feet, but I once kill