CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 91 



had already been beaten. No one willingly 

 lets a woodcock off in India any more than at 

 home, so back they went through the long 

 grass, almost doubling on their own tracks, 

 and there lay a young sambur calf, wideawake, 

 but crouching close to the earth. The hind 

 had doubtless hidden it there and told it in her 

 own fashion to lie still, whatever happened. 



The barasingh, or swamp-deer, is a smaller 

 animal, but its antlers carry many more points, 

 and the brow-tines (which may be compared to 

 the lowest branch of a tree) are very large and 

 conspicuous. Its colour is red along the back 

 and sides and white beneath. It does not, 

 like the sambur, keep to the densest portions 

 of the jungle, but is more often to be found 

 in the high grass in open spaces between two 

 woods and nowhere very far from water, which 

 it needs regularly and at short intervals. For 

 this reason, it is one of the worst sufferers by 

 the native practice referred to above. These 

 men are not first-class shots, and their arms 

 and ammunition are primitive. Europeans, 

 with their modern rifles and knowledge of how 

 to use them, are less objectionable, yet even 

 they might occasionally set the natives a better 

 example than they do. At the same time, the 

 worst enemy of the sambur, at any rate, is not 

 man, black or white, but the dhole, or wild 

 dog, with which most people must be familiar 



