TWO GAUR CALVES 349 



inspection of the ungainly and yet pretty little beasts, which 

 were about the size and appearance of young calves, we 

 released them and left them in peace to be shot, no doubt, 

 at some future date, when developed into beasthood. Both 

 animals, I noticed, had a faint dark stripe down the back. I 

 have since regretted not having made an effort to try and get 

 them brought in and have them suckled by a cow buffalo, as 

 I believe, looking at it from a pecuniary point of view, that I 

 could have made a good thing out of it by selling the animals 

 to some dealer of wild beasts at home. And yet I am not 

 sorry I released them, as I do not think I could have succeeded 

 in bringing them in alive, as, being not only difficult animals 

 to rear at any time, I should not have had an opportunity of 

 obtaining fresh milk for them for probably two or three days, 

 not to speak of the possibility of being unable to purchase 

 eventually a milch buffalo. Besides, I should not have liked 

 the little beasts to die whilst on my hands. But yet another 

 and more important consideration I should have lost the 

 remainder of my leave if I had returned with them. Taking 

 all things together the risk was great, and I do not think 

 I should have been compensated for my trouble in the 

 end. 



After the usual scene of finding blood on the leaves and 

 ground, we took on the tracks of the wounded gaur. Moung 

 Hpe, after we had been following the trail for about a mile, 

 seemed to think that I had hit the animal rather far back, 

 and that we would in consequence have a long chase before 

 bagging it. The tracks showed that the wounded gaur had 

 separated from the herd and taken a line of its own. This is 

 usually a distinct sign of an animal having been badly wounded. 

 It is on occasions like this that the advantage of a heavy rifle 

 is most apparent. 



I have often picked out an animal from a herd of either 

 tsine or gaur and fired at them with a -303 rifle, and then 

 found on going to the spot, should the animal not have been 

 shot through the heart or head, that I was unable to tell 

 which animal to follow, simply because the minute hole inflicted 

 by the Lee-Metford bullet had not caused a sufficient flow of 

 blood by which the tracks of the wounded animal could be 



