RAVINE DEER AKD BLACK BUCK HUNTING. 73 



shoot an old female whose horns measured 8;^ inches, the long^ 

 est by two inches yet recorded. They were very slender, tapering 

 gradually from the base to the tip. 



Although the gazelle is rather dull in both hearing and smell- 

 ing, as we proved many times, its sight is keen and restless, and it 

 furnishes very interesting sport, especially if the little creatures are 

 unusually waiy and wild from previous acquaintance with fire- 

 arms. They usually go in di'oves of five to eight, but we once en- 

 countered a splendid herd of thu-ty-seven gazelles and four sasiu 

 antelopes, feeding in a stubble field in the early moi'ning. On that 

 same ground two English sportsmen once made a famous " bag " 

 at Christmas time, the net results of the day's shooting being two 

 gazelles, one gazelle's ear, one horn, and one horse and his keex^er 

 peppered with bird-shot. 



An account of our busiest day's sport in the ravines, and our 

 best bag of specimens — for from first to last I took either skin or 

 skeleton of every adult animal — will suffice to illustrate one phase 

 of zoological collecting. The following is from my journal : 



" Kiuntra, April 2d. — Major Ross awoke me at half-past three, 

 and after a hasty toilet, two hard-boiled eggs and a cup of co£fee, 

 we mounted our horses and were off. Oui* rifles had gone on an 

 hour before with Wazir and Jungi, the two horse-keepers, and 

 men who went to carr'y the game home. As we cantered across 

 the fields towai'd the ravines, dayhght appeared in the east, and 

 the cool morning air resounded on every side with the cooing of a 

 hundred doves, blended into one continuous, trembhng note rolling 

 close along the earth, 



"At the head of the ravines we planned out our respective 

 courses and separated, so as to shoot over as much ground as pos- 

 sible, and also because we had found that a sportsman does better 

 work alone when hunting ' small deer.' Wazir was to keep me 

 company, and two game-carriers followed us at some distance. 

 This was the place where we expected to find nil-gai {Portax pictus). 



" We caught a glimpse of a fine wild boar crossing a Httle ridge 

 as he was returning from his nightly raid upon the fields to his lair 

 in the ravines, and tried to follow him up and get a shot, but failed 

 to see him a second time. Walking down the level bed of a ravine 

 we turned a corner suddenly, and came plump upon five gazelles 

 walking leisurely toward us, when — xvhish ! — there was a dash of tiny 

 hoofs and the agile Httle creatures bounded out of sight like a flash. 

 We bestirred oiu'selves to cut them off, but when we next saw them 



