34 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



Brahminee Ducks in pairs along river-banks, but neither are 

 they appreciated. There was a large bheel a little below 

 Shoaydoung where a few ducks could be picked up by going 

 after them in dug-outs. In the delta of the Irrawady a few 

 also are found. 



The water-fowl, as distinguished from the ducks and teal, 

 are very numerous, but none of them are worth mentioning 

 excepting the water-pheasant. 



The hares on the Irrawady side are fine large beasts, many 

 of them nearly as large as English ones, and are fairly plenti- 

 ful ; whilst those on the Sittang are very rare, much whiter, 

 and not much bigger than a rabbit. If properly cooked, an 

 Indian hare is not half bad eating, but though in most things 

 culinary the native servants and cooks are unrivalled, they 

 are not adepts at cooking game. 



When I was sent to Namyan five miles south of Prome 

 to clear it out for building a Station, there was very fair sport 

 there. I have shot snipe, hares, francolins, jungle fowl, and 

 occasionally a barking deer, on the same day. 



BIG GAME OF LOWER BURMA 



Naturalists acknowledge but two species of elephants, the 

 African and the Asiatic in which they are undoubtedly 

 correct ; but why they assert that the Muckna or Hine is 

 identical with the Goondas I do not know. Mr. Sanderson 

 for whom I have the greatest respect as a sportsman and 

 observer remarked in his Thirteen Years among Wild Beasts, 

 that the having tusks or not was merely accidental, like 

 whiskers in a man ; but I maintain that the two beasts are 

 varieties, though of the same species. Any good mahout, 

 whether Indian or Burmese, laughs at such a theory. There 

 are marked differences, not only amongst the males, but 

 those differences extend to the females. In Ceylon they are 

 almost all Mucknas, also in Sumatra; in Burma there are 

 more Hines than Goondas. In Assam, Goondas predominate, 

 but there are plenty of Mucknas too. In India the latter are 

 decidedly in the minority, and, I think, if further search be 



