38 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



the wooded hills of the southern parts of Chota Nagpoor. I 

 have seen them on the Khasia hills near Cherra Poonjee, but 

 never on or near Pareesnath, although the hills about that 

 neighbourhood are very well suited to them, and do not differ 

 much from those of Singbhoom, on which this deer is still to 

 be met with now and then. 



Antelope-shooting is now restricted to narrow limits. Not 

 very long since black-buck stalking might have been had in 

 perfection in Pooree, Cuttack, Balasore, Midnapoor, Pimieah, 

 Gya, Shahabad, and Julpigoree, and even in Moorshedabad 

 and Nudiga on a small scale ; but now in Pooree, Shahabad, 

 .and Gya only may the stalker hope for such success as will 

 repay him for his time and labour. 



The gazelle, or " chickara," will be found in small numbers 

 in Chota Nagpoor, in the southern jungles of Gya and 

 Shahabad, and in the western parts of Midnapoor and 

 Bankoora. The four-horned antelope I have seen nowhere 

 in Bengal, and only rarely in the south of Chota Nagpoor; 

 while the neelgau will occasionally turn' up in the Khyrnon 

 hills, in the jungles of Gya and Chota Nagpoor, and very 

 rarely in Hazaribagh. The season for the pursuit of all these 

 antelopes is that between the close of the rains and June. 



Unless something be done, and that ere long, to check the 

 extermination now going on of all these beautiful and useful 

 creatures, deer of all kinds will soon disappear completely 

 from all but the most inaccessible hills and forests ; and it 

 seems improbable that a single black buck will, twenty years 

 hence, survive the indiscriminate slaughter, in season and out 

 of season, now permitted among the few herds which still 

 remain in the Lower Provinces. 



There are not now many districts in which sportsmen 

 can say to themselves, To-day or to-morrow we will have a 

 day's partridge-shooting, or take a turn at the jungle-fowl, 

 pheasant, fioriken, or even water-fowl ; it is only in a few 

 that good quail-shooting can be relied upon, so that snipe 

 afford the only bag that can be calculated upon with any 

 certainty in Bengal. The migratory habits, together with 



