SMALL GAME IN INDIA 163 



breaking the monotony of its expanse. In the dis- 

 tance a mud village or two shyly obtruded from a 

 clump of trees. The glass showed a buck, so I 

 made my way to the knolls with a lingering hope 

 that the usually unerring Robert would this time 

 miscalculate the distance. A few does were feeding 

 within forty yards of my coign of vantage, absorbed, by 

 the time I reached them, in the stalkers' manoeuvres. 

 For a few moments they watched ; then a couple of 

 shots in quick succession sent them scudding across 

 the plain to join the masterless herd. The third 

 robber, with the perverted instinct of his class, had 

 carefully concealed himself in the exact line which the 

 buck was bound to take. It was only the latter's 

 body which saved him. However, he turned up 

 smiling, and seemed to think that he had done quite 

 a lot towards the success of the stalk. 



The buck round Delhi have very nice thick horns, 

 and, unless my memory fails me, the record head 

 came from that district. Farther west their girth 

 decreases. Albinos are occasionally met with. There 

 is one with a nice head in the Lahore Zoological 

 Gardens at the present time. 



Slinging our beast on a staff we made for the 

 garry, passing a well on the way, picturesque, in spite 

 of its sun-baked surroundings, with the usual pair 

 of patient bullocks plunging periodically down their 

 steep incline into the pit which waited for them. A 

 mile or so farther on we saw another solitary buck, 

 but left him for the return journey (when of course 



