DRINKING HABITS OF WILD ANIMALS. 255 



Now for the chikara. I can only say that my experience does 

 not coincide with that of Dr. Blanford. Perhaps the poet was more 

 accurate than the naturalist, when he wrote — 



The wild gazelle on Judha's hills, 

 Exulting yet may bound ; 

 And drink from all the sacred rills 

 That gush od holy ground. 



I have seen the chikara in the act of drinking at a pool before 

 sunset, when waiting over the water for a panther ; and a family of 

 three used to drink nightly at one place near a cantonment where I 

 was stationed some years ago. The cold season of 1899-1900 was 

 one of great drought, and all the water courses were dried up in the 

 part of the Deccan where I was stationed. The only water was 

 contained in the wells and irrigation channels in the vicinity of 

 villages. At these wells the patient laborious cattle toiled all day to 

 draw the water that ran down the channels to irrigate the fields. 

 At night when all was quiet and the watchmen slumbered on their 

 platforms amid the crops, the nilgai always came down and drank 

 where the water was collected, and especially at the wooden troughs, 

 hollowed out of the trunks of trees, which were placed for the cattle 

 near the wells. The marks of their feet might be plainly seen in the 

 soft mud every morning. At night, too, the prowling panther 

 visited such spots, where he might find a victim among the herds of 

 gazelle that trooped down during the hours of darkness from the 

 neighbouring stony and arid hills, or might pick up a stray goat or 

 dog belonging to the hamlet, or a calf that was perishing of want. 

 The gazelles drank here in numbers, leaving a beaten pathway from 

 their jungle haunts. 



Around the life-giving water all that passes during the night, all 

 the comings and goings of the beasts of the fields may be read from 

 the book of nature which lies open to the observant eye. There is 

 the beaten track of many dainty little pointed feet, the marks of the 

 gazelle, and the larger spoor of the antelope. The pugs of the 

 panther may be looked for upon any of the dusty paths that approach 

 the trough or water channel. All animals prefer to keep to a beaten 

 track, and their wanderings are thus more easily followed. The 

 porcupines, most nocturnal of creatures, have come down from their 

 cave-dwellings in the banks of the dry ravines and in the hill sides, 



