i50 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIII, 



on Pezwa hill.in the Thayetmyo Yomahs already referred to and unfor- 

 tunately neither the skin nor the head is now in my possession having been 

 accidentally destroyed in a fire some years ago. I do not either now, I 

 regret to say, possess the skin or head of another animal, an old female, 

 shot by me in the Ruby Mines District in 1892 a poor description of which 

 is given on page 184 of the work " Wild sports of Burma and Assam." 

 Although the description given there might have been better, it is sufficient 

 I think to enable one to identify it as the same type of animal which was 

 shot by me in Thayetmyo in 1898 and which I take to be the N. sumatra- 

 ensis. 



Shortly after my arrival in Paletwa I heard of a famous horse shoe shap- 

 ed rocky plateau known as " Kyauk-pan-daung " or translated literally 

 from Burmese, the flower covered rocky hill, some 4,500 feet in height which 

 was situated some 26 miles to the east of my Headquarters and to the 

 top of which a rough bridal path existed, where it was also rumoured that 

 an occasional bison was to be met with along its open grassy tops whilst 

 the precipitous grassy slopes and rocky Clio's which skirted the plateau on 

 its western face for a distance of nearly 8 miles was said to be the resort 

 of goral and serow. I made a mental vow that it would not be long before 

 I visited the plateau and took toll of the game to be found there. I had 

 been told before my departure for Arakan that there was little or no big 

 game shooting to be had in the Arakan Hill Tracts owing to the large 

 number of guns which were in the possession of the hill people and 

 because of the dense bamboo jungle and undergrowth which existed 

 everywhere, the result of hill clearing and annual firing for purposes of 

 cultivation, which made stalking an utter^impossibility, and that bison and 

 rhinoceros were rarely if ever met with by the inhabitants, who were 

 moreover skilled trappers who snared anything they could not shoot, from 

 the smallest bird to the largest animal. 



I found this only too true afterwards in many respects although there 

 were still a few bison, goat and rhino left which I straight-way made arrange- 

 ments should not be molested in futare by the natives, as these animals 

 seldom if ever molest the people or their crops. My observations and 

 experience has shown .me that the only animals which do any appreciable 

 damage to the crops here are pigs, monkeys and sambur and of the bird 

 tribe parrots and rice birds. Elephants are scarce and are never seen 

 amongst the crops, having been hitherto so relentlessly hunted and shot 

 down by the wild tribes living in this and in the unadministered territory, 

 but more especially in the latter place, that they now always inhabit the 

 densest patches of jungle to be found. One or two small herds of 10 or 

 15 animals have settled down in a large valley known as the " Kin " at 

 the foot of the Kyauk-pan-daung range where they should multiply if not 

 molested, whilst two other small herds may be met with along the 

 banks of the Ru and Lemro streams in the vicinity of the Lower Lemro 

 and Pengwa Police posts. The one desire of the hill people in these parts 

 is to become possessed of a gun and an unlimited supply of ammunition in 

 order not only to supplement their food-supply, but to make a living by 

 the sale of the meat, hide and horns of the animals shot by them. But 

 this no doubt is a very common and reasonable enough desire and applies 

 as well to other races within and outside the Province of Burma. It is not 

 easy nevertheless to know where and when to place restrictions or where to 

 draw the line or to distinguish between the man who desires a weapon 

 solely for the legitimate purpose of protecting his crops and the man who 

 wishes to use it in order to make money easily. It is not possible to 

 expect that a headman or villager who having received a gun from Govern- 

 ment ostensibly for the purpose of protecting himself or his crops will 



