CHAPTER X 



THE JUNGLES OF THE BENGAL DUARS AND ASSAM 



Fauna of Bengal Duars and Assam — Country to east and south — The 

 rivers — Forest growth — Magnificent fauna sanctuaries — Disappear- 

 ance of big game in western part — The Tista Division — Methods of 

 shooting — -Rhinoceros — Types of forest — Game formerly abundant 

 in Duars — Migration of elephants to hills — Sambhar — Reason for 

 smaller heads — Sitting up over a salt-lick — Shift my post — The 

 zareba — Moonlight in the forest — A sambhar appears — Night noises 

 — An unexpected intruder — A tiger kills the sambhar — An uncertain 

 shot — An anxious vigil — The morning's discovery. 



A SCORE of years ago, and less even than that, the 

 elephant, bison, rhinoceros, all shy animals and 

 animals requiring extensive jungles to live in, 

 roamed through the great jungles of the Bengal 

 Duars and Assam from the Jalpaiguri Forest Division 

 eastwards, in numbers that may be characterized as large 

 without undue exaggeration. 



Those who have a first-hand acquaintance with these 

 jungles at the present day could tell a very different tale. 

 And yet these great jungles still form, or could be made to 

 form, an ideal sanctuary for game life, and animal life, 

 speaking in a zoological sense, of this part of India. 



To the west of the area under consideration stretch the 

 extensive forests of the plains and submontane hills of 

 Nepal, a country closed to shooting to the European save 



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