Game Animals of India, etc. 



looked as if a charge of No. i shot had been put 

 into it. 



" Here then was the mystery of the performance I 

 had witnessed. The whole thing seemed quite clear 

 to my mind and prearranged. The fox gave the 

 chinkara a start to make him bound, and the act of 

 bounding, by tightening the skin, expelled the mature 

 bots, and so provided him with a dainty morning meal, 

 while it rid the chinkara of a painful and troublesome 

 pest. I shot some five or six more chinkara after 

 this, and they were one and all similarly infested with 

 those bots, while curious to say four blackbuck I shot 

 were quite free from them." 



According to the observations of Sir Walter Elliot, 

 chinkara bucks fight after the manner of rams, running 

 at one another from a short distance, and striking their 

 heads together with great violence. When alarmed, 

 the chinkara stamps smartly with the fore -feet, 

 like a sheep, at the same time uttering a loud hiss, 

 whence it derives its Canarese name of Tirka. Does 

 may often be seen followed by a pair of fawns ; but 

 neither the pairing-time nor the duration of gestation 

 is definitely known, although the reviewer just quoted 

 states that the fawns are in some cases at any rate born 

 in winter. 



The flesh of the chinkara is of excellent quality 

 for the table, being much superior to that of the 

 blackbuck ; and as the species is so frequently found 

 in broken ground, where stalking is comparatively easy, 

 it affords very pretty shooting with a small-bore rifle, 

 although the smallness of the mark renders accurate 

 shooting essential. In spite of their general wildness 

 chinkara do not go far when disturbed, so that with 

 patience a shot is in most cases obtainable. On the 

 fringe of the Indian Desert, where covert is scarce, a 

 steady shooting horse, or, still better, a riding camel, 

 is often essential to enable the sportsman to get within 

 range. Fidgety and restless at times, and even when 



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