i oo Leaves from an Indian Jungle. 



form those lines of a beautiful shapely frame the light 

 brown muzzle and dark eyes the rich deep russet of that 

 snow-flecked hide, and those long, beaded horns, sweeping 

 back in a curve, and terminating in shining polished tips 

 certainly the most beautiful of the deer tribe ! 



And his surroundings ? While falling little short of the 

 beauties -of an English park land, they are those of nature, 

 free and untrammelled : enclosed by no ring fence ; guarded 

 by no trespass notice and all ours ! 



But something has warned the sharp instinct of a hind 

 that all is not as it should be some sense of brooding 

 danger a fitful curl of betraying breeze. " Phrew !" sounds 

 the warning signal " Phrew I Phrew !" and in an 

 instant there is a quick flashing of dappled hides. 



The herd is gone ! Beyond the knoll of Pipalda a distant 

 glint proclaims the line taken by our stag. He will not go 

 far however ; and, sad to relate, we shall certainly return 

 to secure that splendid pair of horns. 



While their watering habits vary slightly, accord- 

 ing to the situation of the necessary fluid, chital 

 may be said to drink twice a day at dawn, and about 

 sunset. 



If covert is nigh, whence a sudden deadly spring 

 may bring a feline foe, their approach to water is 

 an extraordinary sight. The writer had spent a moonlit 

 night in a tree, sitting up for a tiger, and was 

 awaiting the arival of his men from camp ere descend- 

 ing to earth. All night long the chital stags had been 

 braying, and polishing their antlers against trees in the 

 surrounding woods, and now, with the first green flush of 

 dawn, a large body of spotted deer, ever gregarious, gathered 

 hesitatingly on the bank above the pool, which lay almost 

 directly below our mac/tan. 



