TEAK AND BAMBOO 99 



the Korkus, who hold a leaf of the palds to their mouths 

 and blow on it : this I have from my old pal Bhalu, the 

 black one, whom I found the other morning digging out an 

 ants' nest. We are good friends, and it is only during the 

 mhowa season that our interests clash. Bhalu is quick- 

 tempered, and when we see his shaggy coat moving at 

 midnight under the mhowa trees and hear him sucking and 

 slobbering over the luscious flowers, we know better than 

 to poach on his preserves, although, after all, his angry 

 demonstrations are little better than a pretence, and laugh- 

 able at that. He keeps us merry too on moonlit nights, 

 when he and Mrs. Bhalu fall out and wrangle, and the 

 gtibars> the tiny screech-owls, wake to "chortle" and 

 chuckle hideously as they sit demurely side by side in the 

 branches overhead. 



One more adventure, sahib, and I have done. It con- 

 cerns those vile little foes of ours from whom there is 

 seldom escape the wild dogs. When I tell you that 

 forest reservation has so increased their numbers that for 

 every one during the old days there are now ten, and 

 remind you that each pack, numbering about a dozen indi- 

 viduals, often more, must be fed and fed well, you will begin 

 to understand the enormous losses inflicted on the herds of 

 deer during a single season. 



Increasing numbers have even altered the wild dog's 

 retiring nature, and he now boldly appears where he would 

 not have dared show himself a few years ago. 



Sahib, you are steadily driving us from our home in 

 these hills. Why is the grass never fired now, and why 

 left to die down season after season till it cumbers the 

 earth with such a mildewed and powdery carpeting as 

 none but the rankest herbage may penetrate when the 

 rain comes down ? The bison are going, and we follow ; 

 and at no very distant time these hills will stand yet 

 more desolate, deprived of all that once gladdened their 

 solitude. 



