THE CEYLON ELK 



failed, for the buck went off at speed. We followed on a 

 good blood-track, but soon had to give up, as dusk was 

 setting in and we were some miles from camp. However, 

 I returned to the spot next morning and took up the 

 track again, but we found the buck, by his tracks, going 

 very strong, with no sign of a broken limb, and by the 

 blood splashes we located the wound as probably through 

 the fleshy haunch, too low down for the pelvis and missing 

 the bone. I sincerely hope the wound was not a bad one, 

 for we failed to find that buck and he had not been forced 

 to lie down during his flight. My cousin G. W. Sharpe, 

 whilst on a trip with me a few years ago, bagged a very 

 nice buck under almost exactly similar conditions, except 

 that the old tracker so nicely imitated the grunts that 

 the buck came towards them and so met his fate, falling 

 to one shot of a .303 Lee-Speed rifle. 



Another somewhat peculiar case of coming across an 

 elk in the open occurred to me in 1900. I was at the time 

 accompanied by my cousin Roy Storey, and we had caught 

 sight of a small herd of spotted deer in the park we were 

 then traversing. My cousin went off for the stalk, and I 

 stood still to give him a chance. Suddenly I heard a sort 

 of grunt behind me, and looking round I saw a young buck 

 elk running past me full speed, not more than 35 yards 

 away, whilst a doe was bolting in another direction. 

 Seeing that the buck would alarm the herd of spotted 

 deer I fired at him at once, which I had no business to 

 do, by the way, as he carried no trophy merely sprouting 

 young horns and to my surprise he halted at once, and 

 stood still about 40 yards away. My cousin then fired 

 at him from a position nearly in front, but failed to move 

 him. I had a single-barrelled breech-loader .303 rifle at 

 that time, so I quietly reloaded and plugged him again in 



165 



