122 



Although by 110 means uncommon, this little deer does not 

 seem to be well known except to sportsmen who have been much 

 in the forests it frequents. If I remember right, there is a very 

 good picture of it in one of the Oriental Annuals. 



While I was in Orissa, I have often heard the native ideas regard- 

 ing the animal walking " on the tips of its hoofs," leaning " against 

 a tree to rest," and being " said not to go out much about the fall 

 " of the leaf, as its sharp hoofs penetrate the leaves which clog its 

 " movements," mentioned at page 270 of Jerdon. 



Of the latter fancy, I can only say, that I think, I have seen these 

 little creatures at every season of the year, but only when they 

 were " put up" accidentally by beaters who were employed in trying 

 to rouse more important game. 



No- 63 Portax Pictus- 



JERDON, No. 226, PAGE 272 ; NIL-GAI. 



Doctor Jerdon concludes his description of this animal by remark- 

 ing, that he quite endorses the opinion of Blyth, Ogilby, and other 

 naturalists, that the uil-gai was probably the " hippelaphus," horse- 

 deer, of Aristotle and not the samber deer to which that specific 

 name has been given. The natives of Orissa, where, although I 

 have never succeeded in seeing the animals, I feel sure they are 

 sometimes to be found, always speak of them as ivild horses ; I do 

 not wonder at the idea, for I have myself on two occasions mis- 

 taken for a pony, a blue bull, as the iron-grey male is generally 

 termed by sportsmen, as he was standing in the shade of a tree and 

 facing me. 



The general appearance of these animals might, in several points, 

 induce a hasty or an unthinking observer to suppose that they were 

 related to horses ; for instance the deep neck, and short back which 

 slopes downwards from high withers, the short, erect, black mane, 

 long and tufted tail, which somewhat resembles that of an ass, the 

 varieties in color, I mean that the males vary from different shades 

 of iron-grey to an almost black color, and that the white markings 

 might, by such an observer, be spoken of as piebald, while the 

 females and young males, described by Jerdon to be " tawny or light- 



