nEVlEJV. 395 



One or two herds were supposed to exist in the Rohri Division of 

 the Shikarpur District in the early eighties, but it is not likely that 

 any survive there now, unless the foresters have managed to save 

 them. They are like the Tanna bison, and it will take our best 

 shikari to complete their extinction. 



The term " Bara singa " is ill-applied to this deer, though it often 

 has 1 2 tines ; because it was earlier known to Englishmen in connec- 

 tion with the Kashmir stag. In native mouths it is so vague that the 

 present writer has heard it used (in the Hatti Hills) as a distinctive 

 term for the female Sambar, which has no horns at all. 



Skipping a deer foreign to us, we come to this very Sambar, one 

 of our noblest local beasts of chase, Mr. Blanford's Latin title for 

 him, Cervns unicolor^ has undeniable priority and propriety, and it is 

 a pleasure to be rid of " hlpjwlaphus" " eqnimcs," and aristoteiis,'' 

 which can scarcely have originated otherwise than in confusion of 

 the Sambar and the Blue Bull. His native names are better than 

 usual, but he omits the curious names, Kakada $ and Barsing $ , current 

 in the Hatti Hills ; once if not now, the Sambar's great metropolis, 

 where the lamented Forsyth, and after him the present reviewer, saw 

 the ground marked with Sambar tracks as if by flocks of sheep. 



In one evening this writer, having occasion to feed over 100 hungry 

 men, shot three hinds for meat there, and might have shot a dozen. 



The slaughter of the stags would have been useless, as they were 

 all at that season hornless and much inferior as food. One, which 

 had horns, was stalked by a comrade, but he lost one horn in the 

 furlong or so that he ran after receiving his death wound. In such 

 circumstances, the sparing of the best meat is a silly conventionality. 

 The thing to shoot is what man wants, till the land can afford no 

 more. And if any Gymkhana Shikari calls that pot-hunting, the 

 answer of the old hunter is that no man knows what shooting is until 

 he has shot for dear life ; for his dinner ; or as sometimes happens 

 to the naturaKst, for a rare, perhaps unique, specimen. 



A good deal of the mercy bestowed by ignorant sportsmen on 

 the females of polygamous fauna would be far better spent upon 

 the wearers of "second rate heads ;" that might have become first 

 rate ; and are no great credit to a wall, still less to a lumber-room — if 

 anything could grace that — their usual ultimate destination. One 



