382 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



This animal has been called in north-eastern India the 

 " swamp deer/' but here he is not observed to be particularly 

 partial to swampy ground. They graze in the mornings and 

 evenings, chiefly along the smaller streams, and by springs, 

 where the grass is green, in the open valleys, and rest during 

 the day about the skirts of the sal forest. A favourite mid- 

 day resort is in the shade of the clumps of sal dotted about 

 the open plain, at some distance from the heavy forest. 

 They are not nearly so nocturnal in habits as the sambar, 

 being often found out grazing late in the forenoon, and again 

 early in the afternoon ; and I do not think they wander about 

 all night like the sambar. Their midday rest is usually of a 

 few hours only, but during that time they conceal themselves 

 in the grass much after the manner of the sambar. I have 

 never heard of their visiting cultivated tracts, like the latter ; 

 nor can I learn that their apparent adherence to the sal forest 

 is due to their employing any part of that tree as food. 



In the middle of the day the red deer (so they are called 

 by natives, and often by Europeans) may be shot by beating 

 the grass with elephants in the manner before described. 

 During the height of the cold weather many parts of this 

 tract can hardly be traversed except on an elephant ; and 

 in such places shooting would otherwise be impossible, owing 

 to the height and thickness of the grass jungle. In the 

 course of a day's beating of this sort in the Mandld district 

 a very great variety of game may easily be met with. On 

 one occasion, when spending the Christmas of 1864 with two 

 friends in the lovely Matiari valley, a day's march east of the 

 station of MandM, we secured, I think, a specimen of nearly 

 every kind of game to be found in the country, excepting the 

 bison and the panther. On the 26 th we marched from a 

 place called Bartold, to Gobri, both on the Matiari a clear 



