196 DEER. 



In Southern India their horns seldom exceed eighteen 

 inches in length, but I have shot one with twenty inch 

 horns, and in Northern India they are not uncommonly 

 found with horns from four to six inches longer. The 

 does are hornless, uninteresting-looking animals, of a 

 yellowish colour marked with white. 



This antelope is always found in maidan country in 

 herds of from six to sixty, and its favourite haunts are 

 large plains interspersed with tracts of scrub jungle, and 

 bordered by cultivated land, such as cholum fields 

 which they raid during the night. 



A few years ago antelope were plentiful near Sarjapoor 

 and Kulhulli, some thirty miles south-east of Bangalore, 

 in good stalking ground, the country being undulating, 

 and dotted with isolated clumps of bajr shrubs, &c. ; in this 

 district, too, some good snipe grounds existed, where, with 

 good luck and straight powder, bags of thirty couple were 

 obtainable. The usual programme was to dawk from 

 Bangalore during the night, so as to be on the antelope 

 ground at daylight, then to stalk until breakfast time, 

 about 9 A.M., devoting the rest of the day to snipe, which 

 lay better when the sun was hot. One morning at 

 Kulhully, I had been ineffectually stalking a small herd of 

 antelope for nearly two hours, when some natives came 

 up, suggesting that they should drive them for me. The 

 neighbouring cholum crops had suffered much from their 

 depredations, and the ryots* were particularly keen on 

 getting them killed. At the opposite side of the main 

 road to Bangalore, was a large open plain fringed by 

 cultivated land, towards which the herd would probably 

 make, so I posted myself to intercept them as they crossed 

 the road. They first headed towards the upper end of a 



* Cultivators. 



