108 



" a continuation of the peak- Here my labors and fears began ; I 

 " never scrambled down precipices so nearly perpendicular to the 

 " horizon as I was obliged to do on this occasion." 



During the rutting season the loud and somewhat metallic 

 sounding bellow of a samber stag can often be heard, for an almost 

 incredible distance, reverberating among the almost silent solitudes 

 in which he generally dwells. Of course in forest one cannot judge 

 with any degree of accuracy where the spot is from which such a 

 sound proceeds : but, when I have been out in an open moor, I 

 have heard a stag roaring on a hill at least a mile from me. The 

 clear air of the mountains may have carried this challenge further 

 than it would have travelled in the plains and, although I did not 

 remark it at the time, the wind was probably from him to me, and 

 there was not any other sound, except perhaps the song of a sky- 

 lark, to divert my attention. The call of the hind is a faint grunt- 

 ing "low." 



I have heard these calls both by day and at night, but there is 

 another cry ; a sharp and ringing snort, or signal of alarm which 

 has even a still more metallic clang than the bellow of the stag and 

 which I have never heard except after sunset. It is, I fancy, used 

 by both sexes, and the native hunters affirm, that, it is only uttered 

 when the deer know that a tiger is near them. A few days ago 

 I attempted to combat this notion, as a samber, which was, I suppose, 

 feeding near the edge of a copse, on hearing my gun carrier and me 

 returning home just after dusk, uttered this cry and then crashed 

 into cover. My man was however firm in adhering to his opinion ; 

 he reminded me, and with truth, that we had only half an hour 

 before heard a tigress and her cub calling to each other not far 

 from the spot, and said, perhaps with some reason, that this deer 

 had been made nervous by hearing these, to it of course, most 

 awful sounds and, without waiting to look at us, had jumped to the 

 conclusion that we were tigers and had given an alarm accordingly. 

 He added, as an apology for this mistake on the part of the deer, 

 that it was probably a young hind which had not yet had a fawn ; 

 concluding very ungallantly however with a remark that, under 

 such circumstances a deer is like a young woman, therefore not 

 likely to form a correct judgment on things in general. 



