KAVIXE DEER ATfD BLACK BUCK HUNTHSTG. 77 



Government does not, however, object to the employment of pro- 

 fessional native hunters, or " shikarees," for thinning out the game, 

 and all such persons are duly licensed by the magistrates. 



The sasin antelojDe stands from 32 to 34 inches in shoulder 

 height, length of body and head about 46 to 48 inches, and tail 6^ 

 inches. The does and all the young bucks are of the same color, a 

 pale yellowish fawn color above, with all the under parts white. 

 As the bucks grow older they begin to acquire a dark streak from 

 the knees straight up to the shoulder, which gradually extends 

 backward along the sides and deepens in color with increasing 

 age, until at last, when the animal has come to full majority, the 

 vertical shoulder stripe is almost black and the sides of the body, 

 neck, and head are of a rich dark brown. The female has no 

 horns, and those of the young light-colored bucks are of course 

 short and comparatively insignificant, but the old black buck is 

 crowned by a royal pair, twenty to twenty-five inches long. They 

 are black, spirally twisted in four or five turns, strongly ringed 

 from the base up to the last curve, and diverge into a perfect V. 

 The old male is, in eveiy respect, a very handsome animal. 



A few days after our gazelle hunt, my friends completed the 

 survey of their canal and came to Etawah. Wishing now to obtain 

 a specimen of the sasin antelope. Major Ross and I collected our 

 forces once more and went to Shekoabad, a railway station thirty- 

 four miles above Etawah. Here antelopes were very numerous 

 within easy reach of the station, and, putting uj) at the dak bun- 

 galow, we sallied out morning and evening. An account of our 

 first morning's work will serve to illustrate the character of black- 

 buck shooting and the habits of the animal. 



Starting out at daybreak, we found a small herd within half a 

 mile of the station, but it contained no good buck, and on firing at 

 two hundred yards we each missed a doe and went on. The 

 level plain is so thickly dotted with villages that we saw we could 

 only fire with extreme caution. Fortunately the crops had been 

 gathered and the people were threshing, else we would scarcely have 

 dared to shoot at all. The crops here are watered by irrigation, 

 and every four or five acres has its well and a sloping embankment 

 of earth beside it, thrown up so as to form an inclined plane, down 

 which the buUocks are driven as they haul up the skins full of 

 water. These wells are never covered or enclosed, and before the 

 day was out I nearly came to grief in one of them. 



We found a herd of about forty antelopes, including one fine old 



