BEST MONTHS AND LOCALITIES FOR GAME. 37 



with those of former times, when they were the masters of 

 the plains. 



Deer-shooting is still to be had in many districts, the best 

 season for it being between September and March in other 

 words, between the time the stags' antlers are in prime con- 

 dition and that when they commence to be shed. There are 

 sambur on and around Pareesnath, in Hazaribagh, Singbhoom, 

 and Lohaduggah, a few also in the Khymon hills, in Shah- 

 abad, and in the woods and hills of southern Gya. They are 

 abundant in the forests of Chittagong and the hill tracts, but 

 are comparatively small, and carry antlers in no way to be 

 compared with those of the sambur of Central India and the 

 Neilgherries. The marsh-deer, or " vara-singha " of Bengal, 

 still survive in very small herds in Maldah, Dinagepoor, and 

 on the outskirts of the Soonderbuns, and in somewhat larger 

 ones in Julpigoree, where they were very numerous thirty 

 years ago, as they still are in many parts of Assam, where I 

 have seen this handsome deer in herds of fifty and sixty, in 

 savannahs dotted with swamps and pools of water. The 

 spotted deer, once very common almost all over the country 

 west of the Megna, have become rare, and are fast being 

 exterminated. In the Soonderbuns alone they are still as 

 abundant as ever, and there are still a few in Hidgelee, along 

 the coast of Balasore and Cuttack, and in the woods of 

 Pooree. I have seen a small herd in Maldah, and there is a 

 fair sprinkling of them in Gya. Hog-deer will be found in 

 great quantities in Purneah ; they used literally to swarm on 

 the "churs" of the Megna, the Brahmapootra, and the Ganges. 

 So numerous were they on them at one time, that I have 

 known two guns to bag a hundred in three days. There are 

 still a few left in Dinagepoor, Rungpoor, and Mymensingh, 

 and perhaps rather more in Maldah. The barking-deer will 

 be found in almost all the dry coverts on high lands, and on 

 hill sides, but never in great numbers anywhere so far as my 

 experience extends. They are also to be met with in the 

 Soonderbuns, though I have not seen them there myself. The 

 tiny mouse-deer may be occasionally, but rarely, met with in 



