THE SAM BAR 363 



spicuous example. A fine Sambar varies from four to five 

 feet in height at the withers, and attains a weight of as 

 much as seven hundred pounds. 



The general colour of the rather shaggy, wiry hair is a 

 deep brown, but of rather a yellowish tint in the female. 

 Among the Indian Deer the fawn of the Sambar is the 

 only one that is unspotted. The antler consists of a 

 brow tine followed by a roughly ridged beam from three to 

 four feet in length, breaking into two fairly equal snags at 

 the top. Save for their size, and the fact that the long 

 brow tines curve sharply upwards, the antlers of the 

 Sambar are similar to those of the Spayad or Red Deer in 

 its third year. It is said that in some cases the stags do 

 not shed their antlers for two or three years. 



The Sambar is nocturnal in habit, frequenting jungly, 

 wooded hills, seldom in herds greater than a dozen, except 

 in the pairing season. It is quite remarkably tenacious of 

 life, and it is only when struck by a shot in one of a few 

 vital spots that the animal falls in its tracks. It is usually 

 stalked or beaten, but in Ceylon Sir Samuel Baker used 

 hounds to run it down. In the chase of a fine buck he 

 describes how ' the whole pack was around him; but not 

 a hound had a chance with him, and he repeatedly charged 

 in among them, and regularly drove them before him, 

 sending any single hound spinning whenever he came 

 within his range.' When the hunter broke cover within a 

 few yards of the quarry ' his mane was bristled up, his 

 nostril was distended/ as he commenced carefully to pick 

 his way along narrow precipices with the whole pack in 

 single file at his heels. The thrilling hunt continued, the 

 buck leaping across some boiling rapids, only to alight 

 upon a steep crag, from which he fell into the torrent, into 

 which some of the dogs also rolled over in a confused 

 mass. The Deer escaped, and at length reached a platform 

 from which it could not proceed, while the pack prevented 

 the animal returning upon its tracks. He made a dash into 

 the pack, striking out with his horns and his forefeet, and 

 then sprang into the abyss below, at the bottom of which 

 he was afterwards found with all his bones broken. 



A somewhat similar animal is the Swamp Deer, or 



