XX1U. 



bears, bison, sambur, spotted-deer, muntjack, or barking-deer, mouse- 

 deer, wild hog, jungle fowl, spurfowl, hares, partridges, quails, also 

 woodcock and snipe in the season. The tiger is rarely met with on 

 the higher range. Panthers are more numerous, and the planters and 

 other residents occasionally have their dogs carried off by these 

 prowling depredators. There are very few bison, and those only 

 found in the lower thickly wooded valleys where bears are also 

 occasionally met with. Sambur are not numerous ; none are found 

 on the upper ranges. The spotted-deer inhabits the bamboo jungles 

 on the slopes of the hills, and has at rare intervals been seen in the 

 neighbourhood of Yercaud ; but it is now so reduced in number 

 that the most persevering sportsman rarely falls in with it. The 

 muntjack, generally known as the jungle sheep, is pretty numerous 

 amongst the Coffee gardens and jungles of Yercaud ; but from its 

 wary habits and the jungle being so continuous and thick it cannot be 

 easily driven, and is consequently seldom shot. Wild hog are also 

 rather numerous, but for the same reasons are not often killed. The 

 little mouse-deer is rarely seen, but its foot prints are found in many 

 places. The jungle fowl, spurfowl, hares, partridges and quails, afford 

 an occasional shot during a morning's walk, but good dogs are re- 

 quired to find them. There is tolerable woodcock and snipe shooting 

 during the season from November to March. 



" The Malayalies are great adepts at netting game. Even the 

 tiger being occasionally captured by them ; the mode they adopt is 

 to enclose a large space with nets and drive the game towards them, 

 when the animals become entangled in the meshes and are destroyed 

 in their attempts to escape. 



" The cause of these mountains not having become so fre- 

 quented, as they deserve to be, is owing to the bad name they have 

 obtained for fever. Many people at Madras would as soon encamp in 

 the most deadly jungle as go to the Shervaroys, there is no doubt that 

 in occasional seasons when the south-west monsoon has been late in 

 setting in, there is a good deal of fever on the hills during the months 

 of May and June, and at long intervals there have been severe out- 

 breaks of fever ; but few stations in India are entirely free from such 



