85 



How far there is truth in the notion it is not for this writer to 

 guess, but he can say, that he who has, with a hunting knife, to 

 put out of pain a large wounded stag, let him be of saraber or spotted 

 deer, or even a bull nilgai, or a buck antelope, has a task, which 

 requires nerve and activity, a ready hand with the weapon and a 

 quick eye to guide the blow. 



The native hunter's notion is, as was ours, that, there is some 

 peculiar venom for man or dog, in a deer's horn, but, I fancy, that 

 so formidable a weapon as the antler (it is with the basal antler, I 

 think, that the wound is generally given) wielded in terror, or 

 desperation by one of the most muscular and active animals of the 

 forest would, under any circumstances, inflict more severe hurt than 

 would a boar's tusk ; added to this should be taken into considera- 

 tion the sledge-hammer-like blows given by the fore-feet of a deer, 

 sufficient in themselves to cause death by breaking ribs and inflict- 

 ing internal bruises which may, when the stab of the horn is noticed, 

 escape observation. All the deer tribe whether male or female can, 

 according to their size, deal blows with their fore-feet with great 

 force and precision. 



At page 256, volume X, of the Indian Sporting Review, July to 

 December 1849, which I have seen since these notes were written, 

 I find my remark about the size of the horns collected in the 

 hill tracts of Orissa, Goomsoor and Golcondah, corroborated by 

 " Zoophilus" who is, if I mistake not, no less an authority than Mr. 

 Blyth, in the following letter accompanying a very good drawing 

 of a pair of samber horns ; the letter is addressed to the Editor 

 of the Sporting Review by " Zoophilus" who says : 



" I send you a drawing of the most gigantic pair of samber horns, 

 " I ever beheld. They are a pair that have been naturally cast by 

 " the animal, and were doubtless picked up in the jungle. A mer- 

 " cantile friend obtained them from a batch of horns collected, as 

 " he believes, somewhere on the Cuttack coast, or further south 

 " towards Madras. I examined the heap of them myself but could 

 " find no others of remarkable size, or even approaching to the 

 "magnitude of the huge pair figured. The drawing is reduced 

 " precisely to one-eighth of their dimensions, so that the only mea- 



