THE CEYLON ELK 



shot, but off he went, and at the sound of the shot we 

 heard the dogs barking loudly, on the move in our 

 direction. They kept to the forest, however, and were 

 heading for the road, so we ran as hard as we could to 

 the edge of the park where the road entered the forest, 

 and, at that moment, to our amazement, a buck elk broke 

 from the forest into the road, so " done " that he could 

 only walk, followed by three biggish pariah dogs, also so 

 exhausted that they could only trot slowly along at the 

 buck's heels, tongues hanging out, letting out a hoarse bark 

 now and then, and snapping feebly at his heels. The buck 

 crossed the road, entered the forest again, cut across the 

 corner of it and entered the park, where we were ready 

 for him, having run up the edge of the forest to intercept 

 him. I let fly at his broadside with the No. 5 shot at less 

 than 20 yards, and Tom did the same from the other side. 

 I do not think we hurt him much, but he broke into 

 a feeble gallop, still followed by the dogs, for about 

 40 yards and fell. Tom ran up and knifed him, but he 

 was already dead, and stiff in five minutes ! 



He was a full-grown buck with a miserable head of 

 horns, and had been actually and literally run to death 

 by the three pariahs ! Two slunk away at our approach, 

 but the other, a white and yellow beast, lay mouthing the 

 deer and growling at us for some time, eventually getting 

 up, retiring a little way and lying down, " done to a turn." 

 Our trackers turned up just then and were much surprised. 

 They recognised the dogs as belonging to the Veddah village 

 of Rotawewa, near Minneriya, and fully 8 miles from this 

 spot. We tried to make friends with the bolder dog but 

 he would have none of us, so we cut up the deer and 

 returned to camp. 



Mr. F. L. Reeves, son of our veteran planter and sports- 



167 



