REMINISCENCES OF JUNGLYPUR 233 



excited yelling began, ceased, and I learnt that two stags 

 had broken back. This should have warned us, but the 

 beat was resumed on the same lines. I could see a man 

 here and there, as the beaters came along the woody hill- 

 side ; then they reached the spot I had marked as likely, 

 had almost passed it, when there came a yell of excite- 

 ment and a crash ! Up jumped a big black stag right 

 among the howling Korkus, three hundred yards away, 

 and rushed back through the line ; stood an instant a 

 perfect picture with the sunlight glinting from his 

 polished horn tips ; then dived under the trees, showed his 

 yellow rump an instant, and was gone ! He had been 

 lying in that patch of long grass, under the thickest shade 

 he could find, and when I examined the place it was reek- 

 ing of that peculiar sickly-sweet odour which big stags 

 have at this time of year. This stag left little trace of his 

 retreat, but the lie of the ground pointed to his having 

 gone round the shoulder of the hill towards a big khora 

 which runs up from the lower-lying Barhanpur valley. 

 Some hours were spent in working through the neighbour- 

 ing depressions on the west side of the hill, and a couple of 

 hinds, a fawn, and a brocket passed below me all taking 

 the same route down a long spur to this khora. One of 

 the men said he saw a big stag as well, but no trace was 

 found of him. Finally, we descended and tried our luck 

 just above the upper end of the big khora. I was watch- 

 ing, with my glasses, the men in the distance, when there 

 was a sudden commotion, and a stag burst out of a small 

 ravine in front of them, and came running along the 

 slopes, about five hundred yards away, taking a line which 

 would lead him a long way below me. There was nothing 

 to do but to run for it down a break-neck three or four 

 hundred yards of grassy, stony hillside, and cut him off; 

 and I arrived, panting, just as he came racing over a sharp 

 spur through trees and long grass. He swerved suddenly 

 on noticing me, and I then noticed that his horns were small 



