THE WHITE-MANED SEROW 161 



ochres. Autumn had come, suddenly and Hke a 

 thief in the night. It is usually a sad season, this 

 waning of another year. So much it leaves behind 

 it, and promises so little in the immediate future. 

 Yet now it seemed to me that 1 found an added 

 friendliness in the hills around me ; they looked 

 less aggressively alien, and more like those hills 

 I had known and loved for years. 



We got on the tracks of one or two serows, but 

 never had a shot. Thej'^ always treated me rather 

 scurvily, and I only saw two. One was a mile 

 off standing on the edge of a slope, and gazing 

 intently down into the valley, a position which 

 he maintained without stirring for three-quarters 

 of an hour. The other gave me a poor chance, 

 as he lay with his back to me on the other side 

 of a gully grown thickly vrith trees. A wretched 

 little hawk pursued me with the greatest malignity, 

 squeaking above my head, and fluttering round 

 till his attention was attracted. To my lasting 

 regret I missed him ! 



The doctor never failed to see one when he 

 was after pheasants. An old male walked straight 

 across a bare hill-side in full view of him one 

 evening, and completely defeated the diminishing 

 remnants of the scratch pack on the following 

 morning. 



George came suddenly on a female whilst after 

 wapiti. She disappeared very rapidly down a 

 precipice without giving him a chance, and a few 

 days later, whilst waiting for a stag to emerge from 

 the wood below, he saw another. It stood motion- 

 less at the edge of some firs on the far side of 

 the valley, and looked superciliously at the corner 



