88 Leaves from an Indian Jungle. 



At length a tall black object is spied moving slowly for* 

 ward, and after a while it steps into a patch of moonlight, 

 which falls through the twisted boughs, and appears to 

 view a fine old sambar stag, with newly-sprouted horns in 

 velvet. A tall salai tree is before him, and here he pauses 

 and raises his muzzle ; then, leaning sidewise, scrapes his 

 rough hide luxuriously against the bark. 



Tiring of this exercise, the stately measured walk is 

 recommenced, and he feeds slowly o(T, over a little 

 glade, and gradually disappears in the labyrinth of 

 ghostly yellow trunks. He is probably one of those who 

 drank at our pool to-day, and so is indifferent to water 

 for the next forty-eight hours or thereabouts, though he 

 may turn up in the hour before dawn for a roll and 

 mud-bath. 



The sound of his wandering steps in the leaves dies gra- 

 dually away, and all is again still, save for the eternal 

 " Chuckoo chuckoo !" of the nightjars, and their prolonged 

 cry of " Hoo hoo hoo !" as they flit and sail from tree to 

 tree, rock to rock. 



One of the most exciting bits of this night work is the 

 waiting to see what it is that for the last half hour has 

 been moving towards the pool through the tell-tale leaves, 

 and which now emerges, and halts a dark shapeless mass 

 on the edge of the jungle. 



Perhaps it were hardly interesting to record how sever- 

 al sounders of hog boar, sow, and many little squeakers- 

 approached, wallowed, drank, and finally trotted off, grunt- 

 ing satisfaction, to where their favourite roots were to be 

 had for the grubbing ; how a pair of jackals arrived, and 

 while one danced a remarkably fantastic fandango in a sand- 

 hole, how its mate discovered some brooding danger and, 

 the signal given, how the pair disappeared, with many a 



