MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 527 



important question he seems to take for granted, that is, do any of the deer 

 met with in India wind a man when he is on the ground ? In the first place, I 

 should like to define what I conceive to be the distinction between scenting 

 and winding. An animal is said to scent when the earth is the medium which 

 conveys a particular taint to its nostrils, and its instinct in most cases induces 

 it to follow the trail; when the taint is air-borne an animal is said to wind it, 

 and when this power is protective it warns the animal to fly. For instances 

 red deer in Scotland and bison in India have this protective power, but how 

 far sambhar and cbeetal, the deer most often seen in Indian jungles, possess 

 this power, opens, I think, a wide field for discussion. Animals as a rule are 

 gifted with certain powers to protect themselves against their natural enemies, 

 and generally particular powers are specially developed in each animal, accord- 

 ing to the nature of the country inhabited by it. An old German saying, quot- 

 ed in the Badminton Library, illustrates this : "The deer heard it, the chamois 

 saw it, the pig:smelt it." In the Scotch deer forests, where a large area can be 

 covered with the eye, and the unevenness of the ground renders a stalk com- 

 paratively easy, the deer can wind the presence of man at an extraordinary 

 distance, while, from the above quotation, it would seem that the deer which 

 inhabit the thickly wooded forests of Europe, depend for their protection on 

 their powers of hearing. As far as my own experience goes I believe that 

 sambhar and cheetal depend entirely on their powers of seeing and hearing, 

 which are very acute, though I regret to say my evidence on this point is all 

 of a negative character. Mr. Inverarity in his papers on sambhar and 

 cheetal published in this Journal, makes no mention of their being able to 

 wind human beings and, as far as I know, when stalking, he never takes the 

 wind into consideration. In good jungle, whether going up or down wind, 

 one always sees a fair number of deer, though of course it is impossible to say 

 if deer can wind a human being ; how many have gone off without being 

 seen. I think if they could, one would not see half the number one does. 

 I have often watched sambhar and cheetal without being seen, and they have 

 never shown any signs of winding my presence, though the wind must on 

 some occasions have been blowing towards them. 



Generally, the first thing that alarms them is some unwonted sound, when 

 they bring their ears forward and then look for the cause. When a sambhar 

 fi rst sees you, it will continue staring for several seconds before bolting, so 

 that you can always get a standing shot if you see it soon enough, while I 

 have generally found that a cheetal concludes at once that you are not a 

 desirable acquaintance and gallops out of range before stopping again. At 

 night one often hears sambhar and cheetal barking quite close to and all 

 around the camp, alarmed no doubt by seeing the fires and hearing the men's 

 voices, but apparently in no way warned by the taint of man's presence, as they 

 may be seen the next morning a few minutes after starting. Cheetal are said 

 to bark at night when there is a tiger about, but how they detect his presence 



