REVIEW. 393 



Pantholops Rodgsoni. — The Tibetan Antelope follows the Black- 

 buck in Mr. Blanford's list. But it is not a beast of Bombay, where 

 it is chiefly represented by the heads on our own walls. The next in 

 order, however, the Indian gazelle^ toas a common antelope throughout 

 our plains, and is still found in many of them, and still more in low 

 foot-hills and broken ground. This is not, as Mr. Blanford seems 

 to think, from preference, but because it has been driven into such 

 places by persecution. Where it can get leave to live in a plain, as in 

 some parts of Gujarat, it is quite at home there; and the present 

 writer has shot it in pretty thick forest in Sind and elsewhere from 

 thick lofty millet crops. 



The natural home of the Gazelle, however, is barren ground with 

 a certain amount of scanty cover, whether in the form of bushes or 

 in that of rocks and ravines. 



It is a shyer animal than the Black -buck, and knows better how to 

 hide itself, and, accordingly, long survives it in places where they 

 have been neighbours, and almost comrades. The native name, Chin- 

 kara (properly Chenkada), means "sneezer,^' and is given from its 

 peculiar alarm note usually accompanied by an impatient stamp. 



When not seriously scared, it will simply trot away from a passer-by 

 w,ith the action of a ponJ^ Mr. Blanford thinks that it never drinks, 

 but tame specimens do, and the present writer has seen Chinkaras 

 go regularly to water, where there was no grass, and has seen their 

 tracks at such places. A Bhil hunter in Khandesh, in 1873, said 

 that he waited regularly for them at the water in the later forenoon. 



Mr. Blanford's maximum for buck's horns is 14 inches. A pair in 

 the possession of Captain Tinling, 17th Bombay Infantry, in 

 1872, were said to be 16 inches long, and looked it, high up on a 

 wall.* 



Mr. Blanford has rid us of a number of unnecessary synonyms. 

 Gazella Bennefti is the only Indian species, even Trans -Indus. His 

 Maratha name is wrongly spelt " Kalsipi '' for Kalshipi or Kalshepat 

 (Blacktail), but Chenkada is as good Maratha. The old term 

 " Bavine deer^' is as bad as it can be, for the gazelle is not a deer, and 

 only lives in ravines when it is allowed no better quarters. It is 

 often monogamous, and appears to breed at all seasons of the year. 



* These came from some place near Kolhapur. 



