INDIAN ANTELOPES 



search for the errant herd, and may after all fail to 

 discover it. 



In many localities which I know in the Mysore 

 district, the herds are few and far between. The 

 areas of uncultivated land frequented by them are 

 moreover large. Sometimes a single herd frequents 

 the waste land around the base of one of the low 

 rocky hills which form so striking a feature of the 

 Mysore country, or it may be that there are two 

 or three such pieces of waste, a mile or more apart, 

 with but one herd of antelope between them. 



The wonder is, not that the antelope are com- 

 paratively scarce in Mysore, but that any of them 

 exist at all, considering the number of natives 

 belonging to meat-eating castes, and the constant 

 war of extermination waged by them upon the 

 unfortunate animals. 



Just as in the District forests and parts of the 

 State forests in Mysore, deer are being continually 

 butchered by natives for the sake of their meat 

 and skins, so in the open plains, by shooting and 

 by snaring, the slaughter of antelope, without any 

 regard to age or sex, goes on, unremittingly, 

 merrily, and profitably so far as the poachers are 

 concerned. 



Of course the State is mainly to blame for this 

 condition of affairs, since a wholesome check ought 

 long ago to have been imposed upon indiscriminate 

 slaughter by a little very necessary legislation. 



When, in addition, one takes into account the 

 number of wolves which, in the Mysore district at 

 least, frequent the same ground as the antelope, it 



