76 SNARING THE KUSTOORA. 



for what use they are intended, unless it be for fighting ; 

 but their rather loose setting in the jaw, and their fragile 

 make, are against this theory. The does are so similar to 

 the bucks in size and colour, that at a short distance it is 

 almost impossible to distinguish any difference between 

 them ; consequently many of the former are destroyed un- 

 necessarily. The musk is found in the male only, in a 

 small bag under the skin, close to the prepuce. When 

 fresh, the secretion is soft and moist, and of a brownish 

 colour. Its smell is then rather offensive ; but when it 

 hardens and dries, the well-known odour of musk becomes 

 so powerful as to be almost permanently transmitted to any- 

 thing with which it comes in contact. On being taken from 

 the dead animal, it is at once tied up tightly in a bit of the 

 hairy skin that covers the gland, and is then called a " musk- 

 pod." The musk-deer inhabits the high cold regions below 

 the snow-line, where it generally affects thick rocky cover ; 

 but it is not unfrequently met with among bare crags, and 

 occasionally about the highest tops of the middle ranges. 

 The natives say it can travel over even worse ground than 

 the tahr. Its cry of alarm is a kind of hiss. As musk is 

 the principle ingredient used throughout the civilised world 

 in the manufacture of most perfumes, a good musk-pod sells 

 for sixteen rupees, or more. These little animals are there- 

 fore more sought after than any other game by the natives, 

 who capture them mostly by snaring, in the following 

 manner : A low fence is made of boughs, &c., along the 

 ridge of a hill, sometimes a mile or more in length. At 

 intervals of 100 or 150 yards are gaps. The musk-deer, 

 crossing the ridge from one valley to another, come across 

 this fence, and to save themselves the trouble of jumping 

 over it, walk alongside until, seeing a little gap, they try to 

 go through it. But in each gap a noose of strong string is 

 placed on the ground, and tied to a stout sapling, bent 

 downwards. The noose is so arranged that, when the deer 

 tread inside it, the sapling is loosed and flies back, leaving 



