295 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VII I 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 
No, 1—A DAY’S SPORT IN BERAR. 
The following account of a day’s sport in Berar, some few years ago, when 
game was more plentiful than it is now, may be of interest to some of the 
readers of our Society’s Journal. 
The writer’s duty, as a District Officer, led him one day to the neighbour- 
hood of a deserted village—Dharur—situated on the banks of a mountain stream 
which, coming down from the Satpurahs, sweeps the base of the hill on which 
stands the fort of Naruallha, one of those forts taken in 1803 by Sir Arthur 
Wellesley, subsequently Duke of Wellington, after he had defeated Scindiah 
and the Bhansla at Assaye and Argaon and had captured Gawilghur. Dharur, 
in fact, is only a few miles distant from the field of Argaon, and in the days I 
am about to write of was just lovely in its solitude. Mixed jungle clothed 
the small valley down which ran the stream on the banks of which the ruins 
of the village stood, and for about 3 miles of its course both banks of this 
stream were densely clothed with “Sendi,’ or the date palm, with here and 
there small open patches of grass. 
On the day of my arrival a “ kill” was reported by a herdsman who grazed 
cattle in the vicinity. The marks on the ‘kill”—a large female buffalo— 
indicated that one, if not two tigers had their home in the date palm. As it 
was impossible for a single gun to command the jungle,a message sent in to 
Ellichpur soon fetched out two friends— General (now Sir Harry) Lumsden 
of Punjab Frontier fame, at the time commanding the Hyderabad Contin- 
gent, and his Rrigade-Major, the late Colonel Hugh Watson. With them came 
as escort officer Resaidar Beg Mahomed, a typical specimen of our splendid 
irregular cavalry. After a careful reconnaissance, we selected a position on a 
mound of earth at the foot of a big mohwa tree, which stood about the centre 
of one of the larger aforesaid patches of grass in the centre of the Sendi-bund, 
about two miles up stream. Here the General, Colonel Watson, Beg 
Mahomed, and the writer stood shoulder to shoulder, with a servant behind 
each carrying a spare rifle. Up the mohwa tree, in the shade of which we 
gratefully stood, was posted a Shikari of Colonel Waitson’s as look-out. The 
troopers of the escort were placed at intervals along either bank, outside the 
denser jungle, as stops, falling in with the beat as it came along. The beat 
itself, mainly composed of hill-men villagers, with a forest elephant in the 
centre to give direction, formed line at the village, and, provided with tom- 
toms, horns and rattles, started about noon. It was the 8th of March, and 
the sun was tolerably hot. It seemed an age before anything showed up. 
Presently, putting us on the qui vive, wellin advance of the approaching 
beaters, came a hare or two; then some jungle cat; and finallv peafowl. 
After all these had passed, there was another seemingly endless interval of 
suspense—that interval during which, as all shikaris know, strung to the 
