1 8o WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



seen and heard myself, that they are undoubtedly good 

 swimmers. 



I remember very well on one occasion, whilst out with a 

 party of police tracking a gang of dacoits, coming upon some 

 fresh rhino tracks leading into the Kin river and emerging 

 on the opposite bank at a crossing where the water, it being 

 then well on in the rainy season, was quite four to five feet 

 deep. One of my hunters informed me that he had once 

 watched two rhinos, a young one and its mother, cross a 

 stream. Before entering the water, however, the mother had 

 to prod up the little one from behind with her snout several 

 times to induce it to venture in. Being unarmed at the time 

 he was unable to shoot them. He noticed particularly that 

 both swam very strongly and swiftly across, the young one in 

 front, and that only a portion of the snout and head of each 

 animal was visible. The young one on arriving at the opposite 

 bank lay down and rolled over and over again on the grass, 

 in the same manner as a horse would do, but the mother 

 walked steadily on after reaching the bank, leaving her young 

 one to follow. It is said that rhinos deposit huge mounds of 

 ordure, 1 visiting the same spot daily. I have not noticed this 

 with regard to the R. sumatrensis (I found the mounds at 

 the foot of the hills near Negrais, and in Assam they were 

 very plentiful wherever there were rhinoceros. F. T. P.), 

 although I have come across their droppings in the ordinary 

 course of my wanderings, and they all seemed as if left on a 

 single occasion. The morning after the death of the rhinos I 

 had rather a novel experience on the top of the Shwe-u-taung 

 hill with a tiger. 



My hunters and I were engaged tracking a solitary bull 

 gaur which, after browsing on young bamboo shoots and 

 leaves in the valley, had left the cover for the more open 

 grassy slopes on the ridge. The grass here, which was never 

 at any time higher than one's knees, had been burnt, and the 

 young green shoots which had sprung up after recent showers 

 attracted sambur and an occasional solitary gaur. 



The tracks after winding about for some time through this 



1 Mr. Thorn, since this was written, has found these mounds in the 

 Arrakan Yomahs. F. T. P. 



