DEER. 193 



cartridges later on. One of the finest cheetul stags I ever 

 got was driven out of a small patch of coffee within ten 

 yards of me, and killed with No. 3 shot. Near the same 

 spot, a few days before, I got two jungle sheep and a 

 mouse deer in the same way, the gun on my left getting a 

 sambur stag. Except when beating over a hill we gener- 

 ally employed only a dozen beaters and five dogs pariahs 

 of sorts and found it ample, the most likely parts of the 

 jungles being narrow strips at the bottom of the valleys, 

 which could be easily commanded by four guns, two being 

 in front and one on each flank. At Yemadoody, near the 

 foot of these hills, Patterson and I found ourselves in 

 a valley swarming with cheetul, and had some nice stalking 

 in the early mornings, and two days' beating, entailing a 

 large expenditure of ammunition, as the covert was thick 

 and it was regular snap shooting. On the second day we 

 were joined by two friends, who rode down from Santa- 

 werry for breakfast. We beat a more open tract of jungle 

 near a lake, for three hours, and got five cheetul. The 

 meat came in useful for the coolies on the coffee plantation 

 belonging to our friends, and some of the heads were 

 handsome trophies. Out of many stags shot by me the 

 head of the last was the best, the horns being about thirty 

 inches long. It was at the end of a long day, during 

 which I had marched from Muddoor to Bandipore, thence 

 to a ridge some two miles to the south of the bungalow, a 

 favourite hunting ground of mine, and where it was 

 reported that a family of four tigers had taken up their 

 quarters, and were killing a number of cattle in the herds 

 which were grazing in the neighbourhood. I visited one 

 of the kills, and followed the tracks of the tigers (two) 

 along a sandy nullah, where they had stopped to drink in 



some puddles, which were covered with small blue btitter- 



o 



