2 14 Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 



" Kyang," murmured the shikari before I had 

 even time to turn my glasses on them. No other 

 living animal was in sight, so catching hold of 

 our ponies, who had taken the opportunity of 

 going to sleep, we walked down the far slope, 

 and at the bottom mounted and pursued our 

 way. Presently the sun sprang up and the 

 warmth was pleasant. Now and then a big 

 woolly Tibetan hare would jump up from under 

 our ponies' feet and go away with the gait 

 peculiar to the species of the two lollops and a 

 bound, the latter a leap with hind legs 

 trailing. 



Not infrequently a shrill gallery whistle, " teee," 

 "teee," "teee," would make us look about, and 

 some slight movement would attract the eye to 

 an upright piece of sandstone, which inspection 

 showed to be a golden - coloured marmot, sitting 

 over his burrow and pretending it was not he 

 that whistled. Queer little beasts, found in queer 

 outlandish spots, no wonder legend has clustered 

 about them ; not the least entertaining being 

 that recorded by Herodotus of the gold-digging 

 ants. 1 



1 " In this desert, then," writes the veracious historian, " and 

 in the sand, there are ants in size not so big as dogs but larger 

 than foxes. These ants, forming their dwellings under ground, 

 heap up the sand as the ants in Greece do, and in the same 

 manner, and are like them in shape. The sand which they cast 



