238 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



hills, with one or two dried leaves attached to them ; and yet 

 I fancied I had seen it move. I looked at it intently for at 

 least a minute, trying to make out if it was a bunch of teak 

 twigs or a sambar's head and horns. It never moved the 

 whole of this time ; and, as the Bheels who were with me said 

 it was only a stump, I turned to pass on. The glint of my 

 rifle barrel must then have caught in the sun, for a noble stag 

 started up from his lair, and without pausing for a second 

 wheeled round and clattered away. My hasty shot missed 

 him clean, and he then plunged into a ravine that lay at the 

 back of the hollow he had been in. I followed across, think- 

 ing I might find blood, but there was no sign, and I turned 

 for home, swearing to expend a bullet in future on every teak 

 stump that bore the most distant resemblance to a deer's head. 

 Both T. and I were often mistaken in these hills in the same 

 manner, and have frequently gone up within a few yards of 

 a stump to make sure. The resemblance is so very close 

 between the two objects that I cannot but think that the 

 instinct of the animal leads him to dispose of his head so as 

 to resemble the bunch of teak. Even the motion of the large 

 ears of the sdmbar, which they restrain only when actually in 

 the presence of danger, answers exactly to the stirring of a 

 dried teak leaf in a light breeze. Indeed no one can hunt in 

 these scantily covered hills without wondering at the extreme 

 difficulty of making out such large animals as s&mbar, bisoo, 

 and bears on the open hill-side. The bison and bear precisely 

 resemble the large black trap boulders that thickly strew 

 every hill ; and thus the glaring contrast of their black hides 

 with the bright yellow grass frequently attracts no attention 

 whatever. T. again returned without a stag, but he had shot 

 a fine fat young doe for the pot. 



On my way back I knocked over a four-horned antelope, 



