Jungle By- Ways in India 



THE MIDDAY SIESTA BARASINGHA 



Few people are probably aware how terribly 

 destructive deer can be in a forest. It is not only 

 the damage they do to the trees in feeding upon 

 the buds and young leaves and leading shoots of 

 young saplings, or in breaking them down, though 

 German Forest Officers have to suffer considerable 

 damage and heart-burnings from this source ; 

 especially in those areas, such as in Saxony and 

 other parts where the Royal Command neces- 

 sitates a certain head of deer being kept up in the 

 Royal Forests for sporting purposes. 



Out in India, at present, at any rate, the chief 

 damage done is due to barking young trees and 

 saplings. It is commonly known that whilst the 

 horns are in velvet a certain amount of itching 

 makes itself felt when the horn has become pakka, 

 and the velvet is beginning to peel off. To allay 

 this irritation the stag rubs his horns against 

 young trees, and in doing so peels the bark off 

 them, thus killing them. But this rubbing the 

 horns against trees under the exigencies of pain is 

 the only plea the stag can put forward to exculpate 

 himself from this propensity of his. 



I was watching a herd of barasingha the other 

 day slowly leaving an open grassy area for the 

 shade of a fine old forest monarch, depicted here, 

 which stood on the edge of the forest. The dense 

 shade afforded by this fine old tree was evidently a 



38 



