THE CEYLON ELK 



walk one up, but you will get no chance of a shot. You 

 will suddenly hear a crashing rush of some heavy animal 

 in front of or to one side of you, and may catch a 

 glimpse of a dark body fleeing through the trees, but 

 the chances are about 100 to i against your being able to 

 put in even a snap-shot. Like most deer they are fairly 

 tenacious of life, and it takes a properly placed bullet to 

 kill them, though I think they are easier killed than a 

 spotted deer. The flesh is coarse and hardly worth eating, 

 but highly prized by the natives, who consider the tougher 

 the meat the stronger will become the eater. The marrow- 

 bones, however, are very good, being full of excellent 

 marrow. 



Reverting to the slaughter of these fine deer by natives, 

 this is most usually accomplished during the dry season 

 by watching at water-holes on moonlight nights during 

 June, July, August, and September, according to the dry- 

 ness of the year. All kinds of deer are thus slaughtered, 

 bucks and does indiscriminately, the beautiful spotted 

 deer by day and the elk generally at night, in spite of 

 the fact .that our game laws forbid night shooting; but 

 the authorities seem quite indifferent to the matter. Such 

 shooting is poaching in every sense of the word, because 

 in every province the dry season is also the close season for 

 deer of all sorts. 



Ceylon is such a wilderness of jungle, and so com- 

 paratively limited is the open " park " country, that it 

 is a thousand pities the legitimate game, in the shape of 

 deer, are being so rapidly exterminated. Europeans con- 

 scientiously take out the required licences and shoot with 

 some discrimination ; but the native " dodge," as I have 

 said elsewhere, is for one man, or at the most two men, 

 in a village to take out game licences, under the " pro- 



161 L 



