TENACITV OF LIFE. 255 



viz., at earliest morn or at late eve ; at other times the sholas 

 must be beaten by men and dogs. 



The colour of the sambur when he is at his best, is a 

 very dark brown ; some of them get very fat, and the hinds 

 and young stags are fair food for the table. The size varies 

 according to age ; a large stag in his prime will stand fourteen 

 hands at the shoulder and weigh over thirty stone. This 

 deer is extremely tenacious of life, much more so according to 

 my experience, than the red deer of the Highlands of Scot- 

 land. I have known them hold on for a long time after 

 receiving wounds which would have proved fatal much sooner 

 with the latter species. 



McMaster gives an extract from the journal of the Old 

 Forest Ranger, in which he states a case of a stag receiving 

 ten 1 -oz. balls before he fell. Two, which he received at first 

 without slackening his speed, passed clean through his body, 

 about the centre of his ribs ; after this he ran about a mile, 

 and laid up in a wooded ravine to which he was tracked, and 

 two more balls hit him, one ball breaking his hind leg and 

 another, entering above the rump, passed along the back-bone 

 and came out near the shoulder. He was lost for about an 

 hour, and when he again broke cover two more balls were 

 planted close behind the shoulder, but still he went away 

 strong. In the chase which followed he was hit twice in the 

 body and at last brought down by a ball through his neck 

 when in the act of leaping a rivulet. He, however, got upon 

 his legs again, and stood at bay in the water, and had to have 

 another ball in his head to finish him. He further says that 

 he could quote a dozen instances of the extraordinary tenacity 

 of life possessed by this animal. 



The antlers of the sambur vary considerably, both in 



