26 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



a mistake. In the month of January 1905, I also saw a young stag with 

 horns a few inches long which appeared to be in velvet; but as he 

 was more than 1 00 yards off, I am not certain of it. 



Sambers are very fond of rubbing their horns against trees long 

 after the horns are hard. The front of the beam above the brow antler 

 is generally worn smooth by this practice. The interstices between 

 the beads on the antlers are packed tight with bark from the trees. 

 The horns are seldom of equal length, one being one or two inches 

 longer than the other. 1 have one head the horns of which are exactly 

 the same length viz. 40 inches. Toe custom is to measure the longest 

 horn. The thickest horn round the burr I have seen is a single shed horn 

 in our Museum which measures 12f inches in circumference at the burr. 

 The longest upper tine I have measures 22 inches. The longest brow 

 ftntler measured from the burr is 24 inches. In the jungles I know 1 

 see no diminution in tli3 number of Samber since I first came out to 

 India nearly 35 years ago. Fair shooting at good heads only will, in 

 my opinion, never do any injury to the stock of deer. I often see old 

 stags with poor heads that I do not fire at that ought to have been shot 

 long ago. Hinds are numerous. On one occasion I saw a single stag- 

 lying out on an open bank in the sun, which is quite unusual as they 

 generally sit in shade. I fired at him and missed ; I tracked him some 

 way and came to a place where he had galloped across a small stream ; 

 the water being about 2 feet deep. A small fish, 4 inches long, was 

 iloating on the surface, and I found it had been cut nearly in half by the 

 Samber's hoof. It was not crushed, so had not been trodden on. The 

 hoof must have struck it when swimming in the water. x\nother stag I 

 hit plunged into a long deep pool of a river and swam up and down 

 the pool saveral times. He swam with his body low in the water, 

 horns thrown back and only the top of his face and points of his 

 antlers showing. The pictures one sees of deer swimming usually 

 show the whole head out of the water, which appears to be incorrect. 

 This particular stag had a 40-inch head, and he eventually swam to the 

 opposite side ofth.3 river and stood in deep water, which enabled me 

 to shoot him through the neck, when he sank to the bottom. 



