622 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXII. 



he took down the gorge scattering everybody with the terriers in attend- 

 ance and getting on to a steep hill from which only one path descended, I 

 was able to head him. On finding his way blocked, he charged a forest 

 guard who was with me and failing to get round the sheltering tree as 

 quickly as the guard could, he backed and charged the tree, shaking it to 

 its foundations ; after this he showed no inclination to fight and very little 

 energy in getting away. I took three exposures of him, but unfortunately 

 in the hurry some intervening grass close to the lens spoiled the two 

 first pictures. The animal is somewhat abnormal in having a very large 

 dewlap. Most bison in the Central Provinces have only a rudimentary 

 dewlap about the size of two hands on the neck and many have merely 

 a slight fold in the skin. This animal had a large swinging dewlap extend- 

 ing down to his chest. 



A. A. DUNBAR BRANDER. 



Chikalda, Berab, lUh May 1913. 



No. VI.— RECORD CHEETAL {AXIS AXIS) HEAD. 



I have just had the pleasure of seeing and measuring the horns of a 

 Cheetal Stag, shot in the Bahraich forests in May last, by Mr. T. J. C. 

 Acton, I.C.S. Measurements of left horn, which is slightly the longer, are 

 as f oUows : — 



Length of horn . . . . . . . . 39i inches. 



brow tine 

 Girth of burr . . 

 „ above burr 



half way up beam 



14 



6f 



4i 



The horns are very symmetrical, one only abnormality being the presence 

 of three snags on the left brow tine, and one on the right. 



The only record book to which I have had access gives 38" as the record 

 length, but the book was an old edition, and I feel sure that larger hea'ls 

 have been recorded. I would like to know what the present record is. 



S. J. MARTIN. 

 Gonda, 1th July 1913. 



[Two cheetal heads of 39" are on record, the one shot by Lady EDeen Elliott 

 in the U. P. and the other by Capt. P. Pope near Jubbulpore. — Eds.] 



No. VII.— THE EFFECT OF CASTRATION ON A BLACK BUCK 

 {ANTILOPE CERVICAPRA). 



The following may be of interest to the members of the Society : — 

 Last cold weather in camp in the Jubbulpore district I noticed when pass- 

 ing through a village a full-grown buck in very good condition, with heavy 

 horns which had been sawn off about twelve inches from the skull, and of an 

 exceptionally pale colour for so large a buck. I questioned the villagers 

 about him and they told me that they had caught him when he was quite 

 young and had kept him in the village for the last five or six years. As his 

 horns grew, he became very dangerous, and so they had them sawn off; but 

 even, thus mutilated, they found that he was a nuisance and so they finally 

 had him castrated. Before this operation he was of the usual dark colour 

 of full-grown bucks, but immediately after it he began to lose l>is colour and 



