io8 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



were found within twelve or fifteen miles of Vizianagram, but 

 have been exterminated there. 



The horns are large and moderately stout, curving well 

 outwards pale, with basal antler, and a more or less branched 

 summit ; the lower branches sometimes simulating a medium 

 tine : colour, dull yellowish-brown in winter, bright rufous- 

 brown or chestnut in summer paler below and inside the 

 limbs, white under the tail. The female is lighter, of a pale 

 dun or whity-brown colour ; the young are spotted. Length, 

 nearly 6 feet; tail, 8 to 9 inches; height, II to uj hands; 

 average length of horns, 3 feet or a little more. Fourteen 

 or fifteen points are not uncommon ; I have shot many with 

 eighteen, and once saw a head with twenty-seven, but many 

 of the tines were merely excrescences. It is the one deer 

 in India that carries a lot of fat ; on hitting one I have seen 

 balls of fat come out of the bullet-holes. I have seen them 

 in herds of thousands in the Bhootan Terai both north 

 and south of the Manas. The Churs of the Brahmapootra 

 river have on them generally many of these deer. They 

 lose their horns in September and October, and the new 

 are not perfect till about the middle of June, though I have 

 got good heads towards the end of May now and then. 

 They hide in the heaviest patches of long grass during that 

 period, and lie very close. Tigers kill very many of them. 

 A saddle off a fat doe is not to be despised. 



-THE THAMINE 



(Cervus frontalis) 



This is a very handsome deer, somewhat less in height 

 than the swamp deer, and for their size they have very large 

 and graceful horns. The basal antler is directed forwards 

 and is very long, and the horns are very divergent, with 

 terminal branches. A variety is found in Munipur; the 

 basal antlers of the latter are longer, and form a curve with 

 the main horn, and very often there are no terminal branches 

 at all, even in old stags ; whereas in the Burman (except 

 with the very young) there are always terminal branches. 



