BULLET AND SHOT 



grazing, and take advantage of all cover which may 

 be available. By keeping well above a stag, and 

 by advancing only when the latter has his head 

 down in the act of feeding, it is wonderful what 

 bare ground the sportsman may often traverse with- 

 out detection if only he keeps the wind in his 

 favour. 



In the low-country forests of Mysore, it is but 

 seldom that a sambur stag in hard horn offers the 

 chance of a shot. The reason for this is that it is 

 only during the monsoon (or rainy season) that 

 noiseless progression is possible in those forests, 

 the dry leaves strewing the ground (which crackle 

 " like tin boxes " when trodden upon), rendering it 

 impossible at other times to get near game without 

 being heard by the latter long before there is any 

 chance of seeing it, or of obtaining a shot. Now 

 it is precisely during the time when game can be 

 approached with facility in the Mysore forests that 

 the stags are out of horn (and therefore not worth 

 shooting), so, except in hilly country, or by beating, 

 a sambur's head worth shooting is seldom bagged, 

 or even seen in those forests, though fine heads 

 exist there. Of course, in flat forests, the only 

 chance of obtaining a shot at sambur is for the 

 sportsman to move about as quietly as possible, 

 endeavouring to catch sight of the deer before they 

 have detected his presence. 



Sambur are supposed to drink only every third 

 day, though in so well-watered a country as Mysore 

 I have had no means of personally testing the 

 accuracy of this dictum. 



248 



