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brown," might very easily have their different shades said to be 

 dun, light chesnut or bay, as the case might be. The short horns, 

 to be found only in the males, rarely exceed, or even equal, the 

 length of the large, broad ears by which at a short distance they 

 might be nearly concealed, as the nil-gai with his head well up 

 stood at gaze. 



The nil-gai too, is larger than any pony. In the Deccan, I 

 killed a large blue, indeed almost black, bull, or buck, whatever 

 the proper name may be, that from the rough measurements we 

 made in camp was supposed to have been nearly fourteen hands and 

 two inches in height or as tall as most Aral/ hunters of former days, 

 but as I see that Jerdon, at page 272, gives four and a half feet, or 

 thirteen and a half hands as the maximum height ; I fancy we may 

 have been mistaken unless he does not take into consideration the 

 lofty and somewhat horse-like withers. 



I do not think that we were much in error however, and I am 

 strengthened in thus holding to our former measurements in con- 

 sequence of having been permitted by Colonel Douglas Hamilton 

 to mention that he killed in Coimbatore a blue bull, fourteen hands 

 and two inches in height. 



I see that, vide page 272 of Jerdon, the Gonds call nil-gai, 

 " gurayi" and " g&riya" both of which words sound as if they 

 were derived from the Hindoostanee word ghora, a horse. 



I think that they generally are in small herds, rarely more than 

 ten in number, often fewer, and I have found them in pairs. With 

 these herds the younger males are not often seen, being I suppose, 

 driven off by the lord of the harem. As with other antelopes these 

 young males (bulls they are and with some reason more often 

 termed than bucks) appear when expelled to form, at particular 

 seasons, into separate and much larger herds than their seniors. 



In Bundlekuud, during the month of January, after a long stalk 

 having succeeded in getting within shot of a young bull which I 

 fancied to be a solitary one ; I was almost run over and trampled 

 under foot by an immense herd, I suppose not far, if at all, short 

 of fifty in number, that I had not seen and that, on being startled 

 by my shot, all galloped down the narrow gap in a ravine up which 

 I had crawled. They were all young males and appeared in great 



