330 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



the hill-stations, they afford pretty shooting to sportsmen who 

 are debarred from hunting better game. Few men go out of 

 their way to hunt gooral, but it is very good fun all the same, 

 and first-class practice both in climbing and shooting. 



Buck gooral are generally found alone or w;ith one other 

 companion ; if four or five are seen together, they are almost 

 invariably does and young ones. It is nearly impossible to 

 distinguish the sexes at any distance, one rarely gets a fair view 

 of the beast to begin with ; the horns are well nigh invisible, 

 except against the skyline, and even if seen are hardly any guide, 

 as both sexes carry them, the buck's horns being only longer 

 and thicker ; and it requires the experience of a Tyrolese 

 keeper, accustomed to chamois, to judge the sex from the shape 

 of a beast half hidden in long grass or bushes. Native shikaris 

 certainly never know. 



Walking along a ridge or a hillside you hear a sharp hiss : 

 up jumps a brown beast some fifty yards off, gallops twenty 

 yards, and stands for a second to gaze ; you fire, and it rolls 

 down the hill ; you climb down congratulating yourself — a 

 clean kill ! — a single beast — surely a real good head this time — 

 but when you reach it, too often it is another luckless nanny. 

 In chamois the buck is more heavily built than the doe, is 

 darker in colour, and has a ruff of long black-brown hair along 

 the back, but it takes years of practice to tell an old doe from 

 a buck, especiaUy in winter. 



The general colour of gooral is a rich brownish-yellow 

 tipped with sepia, and there is a conspicuous white patch on 

 the throat which is more recognisable in the buck than in the 

 doe, and is really, if it can be seen, the best guide in distin- 

 guishing the sexes. General Macintyre mentions an albino 

 gooral. 



Though gooral seem fond of heat, they do not like being 

 out in the sun, and this fact is a decided convenience to the 

 sportsmen, the shady side of the hill being both pleasanter 

 and more profitable to work over. 



Gooral may occasionally be driven, but far the pleasantest 



