250 JOUHNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892. 



contradict our author in the '' Zoo." It haunts, says Mr. Blanford, 

 "thin forest and bush and keeps chiefly to undulating and hilly 

 ground/' and elsewhere he speaks of it as found "throughout the 

 Bombay Presidency." 



As a matter of fact it is unknown in the plain regions forming the 

 most part of this Presidency, but is pretty common in the forests of 

 the Konkan and Khandesh, most of all in the heavy forests of 

 Western Khandesh, where the writer has seen many in a morning's 

 walk. In that region, too, it strays far from water (which Mr. 

 Blanford thinks it never does). 



On one occasion the water-bearers of a Bombay forest party, in 

 the " Dry Jungle '' of Khandesh, missed their way ; and left the 

 European leader, and a Bhil gun-bearer, to a very fair chance of 

 death or lunacy — or both. The creepersj and " bel " fruit failed to 

 allay their burning thirst, and things looked very ugly indeed, when 

 a four-horned antelope came before the rifle. The Bhil rushed in 

 and sucked the blood as it spouted from the shot-hole. The white 

 man lit a fire, grilled and sucked the fresh meat. But both of 

 them were of the mind that the " bekri " was the saving of their 

 lives, as they did not feel strong enough to struggle to the well 

 some six miles away. For the " bekri " the nearest water was 

 9 miles distant. 



Mr. Blanford, however, is doubtless right in allowing only one 

 species of Tetraceros to India, and in utterly rejecting the name 

 ^' Chinkara" as applied to it, stolen from the gazelle. Also in 

 speaking a good word for its venison. 



A large female of Tetraceros qiiadrieornis merelj '' gralloched," 

 that is with only the viscera removed, weighed exactly two stone. 

 The live-weight of a full-growu buck would probably not exceed 

 half a hundredweight. 



It is commonly confounded with the barking deer {Cervulus 

 muntjac) under the name of " bekri " or " bekad." But in Khandesh, 

 at the period referred to, many native shikaris distinguished it 

 as "ran mendi" (wild sheep). Mr. Blanford thinks that it has 

 been sometimes mistaken for the hog-deer. But in the Bombay 

 Presidency all errors to this effect have been due to confusion 

 between the latter {Cervus forcinus) and the barking deer, or 



