288 A GRAND SET OF HORNS. 



him ; so I contrive to reload the rifle, fortunately without his 

 detecting me. Once more it is raised : this time the bullet, 

 passing through him, breaks the other shoulder, and brings 

 him down on his chest. As we stand up and move towards 

 him, the terrified brute, in his endeavours to escape, actually 

 shoves himself along with his hind-legs down the steep grassy 

 declivity before him. At the bottom of this we find him 

 lying, panting and glaring wildly at us, as if quite prepared 

 to make use of his ponderous horns, which he tosses in such 

 a menacing manner as to make the orthodox rites rather 

 difficult to perform. 



Although not so fine a stag as the lost beauty, inasmuch as 

 he had only ten points, yet the dimensions of his grand mas- 

 sive horns are, I think, worth recording. Length, nearly 42 

 inches ; girth at the thinnest part of the beam, between the bez 

 (or bay) antler and median tine, 7 J inches ; girth round the 

 burr, 10 J inches; round the bez antler, three or four inches 

 from the beam, 5 J inches, and brow antlers nearly as thick ; 

 span inside the beams, 33 inches. All the points were perfect. 

 Although he carried such massive horns, he was not a very 

 heavy-bodied stag ; and Eamzan told me that these compara- 

 tively small dark-coloured hangiil generally had the heaviest 

 horns, and were the most noisy and pugnacious, or " bobbery," 

 as he expressed it. His pile was in beautiful order, but the 

 poor beast had rubbed all the hair off his chest, and had even 

 excoriated a good deal of the skin, in his frantic efforts to 

 escape down the hill. But his carcass looked as if he had not 

 made a good square meal of grass for a long time, which was 

 only natural at that season. No doubt the younger of the two 

 stags would have been more appreciated by my Cashmeree 

 companions. 



It was now past sundown, so we merely took out the 

 gralloch, and left watchers to perform a night wake beside the 

 defunct, for bears were about. Next day, when the head was 

 brought in, the old goojur of course declared we had got the 



