434 WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WAYS CHAP, xxv 



would have been invaluable, but it is a physical impossibility that 

 any dog so reckless of danger can long survive. Killbuck, who was 

 killed by a spotted buck at the Park, was just such another dog as 

 Bertram, and he won undying renown by his feats of seizing during 

 an experience of two years, until he met an untimely fate by 

 impaling himself upon the deer's antlers, at the same time that he 

 pulled his stag down single-handed, and died in victory. 



These extracts from my original diary afford a vivid picture of 

 the sport of sambur deer hunting, as it was conducted in Ceylon. 

 I never permitted a rifle to be carried by any person who 

 accompanied the pack, as shooting a hunted stag would have been 

 regarded in the same light as shooting a fox in England. 



I have frequently remarked with surprise that residents in 

 India do not more generally make use of dogs for various types of 

 hunting, especially as the climate during winter throughout the 

 Central and Northern Provinces would be favourable to the sport. 

 There are many places which I know, that would be far easier to 

 hunt than the boundless jungles of Ceylon, and the sambur stag 

 would then exhibit his real character, instead of dying like a sheep, 

 killed by a rifle bullet from an ambuscade. 



Taking this animal as a representative of the species, although 

 the antlers have few points, the sambur stag must be accepted as 

 one of the finest specimens of the genus Cervus in the world. 



