Ill 



By far the finest spotted deer I have killed was in Goomsoor ; 

 where, as in every other part of Orissa, both spotted deer and sam- 

 ber are, I think, more than usually large. This animal had a 

 magnificent head, with the longest and widest spreading horns I 

 have ever seen but, as they were in velvet at the time and their 

 points were smashed to a bloody pulp in the expiring struggles of 

 the poor animal, they could not be fairly measured. 



I have been told by a brother officer, who is probably the best 

 authority on such matters and the best known and most accom- 

 plished sportsman in Southern India, that on the slopes of the 

 Neilgherries and the other mountainous ranges of that part of the 

 country, spotted deer do not ascend the hills higher than the line of 

 bamboo. How high this limit is, I cannot say, probably about 3,500 

 feet. In the Northern Circars I have killed spotted deer in the 

 hills above Goodum and seen them at many other places in the 

 mountains of the Golcondah Zemindary, among which I was at 

 one time employed on field service, or, as a brother Sub said, " in 

 " hunting black fellows and catching fever," and although, I can 

 from dire experience testify, that these hills are not above fever 

 range, I think that they must have been upwards of 4,000 feet 

 above the level of the sea. I may be wrong however in my esti- 

 mate of this height ; for I had no means of judging beyond those 

 afforded by the eye ; the delightful climate, treacherous and almost 

 deadly though it be, the vegetation and birds. But I have been 

 assured by a highly scientific officer employed in the General Survey 

 of India, who is well acquainted with every part of the Northern 

 Circars, that in the Vizagapatam Agency, of which the Golcondah 

 Zemindary is a portion, many of the mountains rise to above 5,000, 

 and the highest up to 5,500 feet above the sea. 



When writing of the spotted stag swimming across the lake and 

 landing so close to me ; I should in the proper place have mentioned 

 as an excuse for not having at once changed the charge in my gun, 

 that breach loaders were not then in fashion, and I valued my pet 

 Westley Richard's far too highly to risk, for a deer, the damage 

 which slipping a bullet over the shot, might have caused. 



During " beats" for peafowl and other smaller game, I have 

 however twice fired at, and on both occasions killed full-grown 



