DIFFICULTY OF GETTING UP TO TSINE 385 



browsing on young bamboos the sounds of the shoots being 

 bitten or broken off are often heard at a considerable distance. 

 When the shoots obtain a height of from 4 to 5 feet, the 

 animal uses his horns to snap off the tops, which are tender 

 till the shoot has attained a height of, say, some 1 5 or 20 feet. 



" Solitary " bulls, singly or in pairs, are often found wander- 

 ing about the country, and in the month of May, when the 

 animals are nearly driven distracted by the gadflies and 

 mosquitoes, they move along at a good pace, their attention 

 being devoted to shaking off these insects. When surrounded 

 by a cloud of these pests and when not feeding, they are 

 more easily approached. 



The early morning, between 5 a.m. and 7.30, or even 8 a.m., 

 and after 5 p.m. till dark, are the best times to find these 

 animals out in the open. 



Patches of recently burnt " kaing " grass should always be 

 visited, as after a few showers of rain the young grass springs 

 up and attracts not only tsine, but gaur, barking deer, brow- 

 antlered deer, swamp deer, pig, and sambur. These patches 

 should invariably be visited at a very early hour in the 

 morning or late in the evening, or on some moonlight night. 

 Gaur and tsine, as indeed all the other animals mentioned, 

 except barking deer, are very chary about feeding out in the 

 open, especially should the neighbourhood have recently been 

 disturbed by wandering bamboo-cutters, or shots fired by 

 hunters. Tsine take more killing than gaur, and although 

 they are not such massive beasts, they are more tenacious of 

 life. I have on two or three occasions had very long weary 

 stern chases after tsine, whose fore-legs have been broken by 

 a shot, before coming up with and killing them. If water is 

 scarce and there are one or two pools in the neighbourhood 

 of the sportsman's camp, which from the footprints appear to 

 have been visited nightly by these animals, it is a good plan 

 to sit up close by. In this manner a good head can often be 

 obtained. It is weary work, however, and not in my opinion 

 worth the trouble. More disappointments than successes 

 attend one's efforts in this kind of shooting, and many men 

 consider it unsportsmanlike to indulge in it. Red ants, 

 mosquitoes, sand-flies, and all the other pests of a tropical 



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