MY FIRST TSINE 387 



white ring round the eyes, but in old bulls I do not remember 

 ever having seen this peculiarity. 



In the rutting season herd animals seem to be continually 

 on the move. I remember on one occasion following the 

 fresh spoor of a herd, which showed from the tracks, which I 

 was obliged eventually to relinquish, that the animals had 

 been on the trot off and on all day, the result, I have no 

 doubt, of the bull's pertinacity. 



Tsine have a very strong and distinctive odour of their own, 

 quite distinct from that of all other animals, and their meat 

 for the same reason is far from palatable. In the case of a 

 female, the odour a la tsine is not so pronounced as in a 

 bull. As in the case of a boar, it is necessary to remove the 

 credentials of a bull gaur, in order to make the meat at all 

 palatable. 



Burmans as a rule prefer the meat of gaur, or rhinoceros, 1 to 

 that of any other animal except the pig ; they do not object to 

 tsine, but their choicest dish, like John Chinaman's, is pork 

 reared in a village. 



I have had many opportunities of shooting tsine where 

 they abounded. On many occasions in the course of a day, 

 when out tracking up solitary bulls, I have put up two or three 

 of these animals. 



When galloping along on my pony down the bed of the 

 Nampan stream, to see if I could come upon any fresh tracks 

 of solitary gaur, I rode right through a herd of tsine, which 

 were feeding on the long succulent grass which was growing 

 luxuriantly along the bed of the river and its banks. I had 

 no gun with me at the time, so could not shoot. It was very 

 amusing to watch the different movements and attitudes of the 

 animals as, recovering from their alarm, they collected in twos 

 and threes on either bank, and watched my every action, a 

 mixture of curiosity and fear depicted on their faces. It was 

 not till I wheeled round and rode at some of them with an 

 unearthly whoop that the spell was broken, and they dispersed 

 and dashed away with snorts of alarm. 



I remember how proud I was when I bagged my first tsine, 

 a veritable solitary bull and a veteran. I had just invested in 

 1 I have generally known them to prefer elephant flesh. F. T. P. 



