34 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. IX. 



SOME INDIAN STALKING- AND SHOOTING. 



By A. M. Markham, i.c.s., f.z.s. 



" ROHILLA." 



(With a Plate.) 



(Read before the Bombay Natural History Society on 10th July, 1894.) 



I am emboldened by reading the pleasant and sportsmanlike paper 

 of my friend (by correspondence) Mr. Inverarity, as true as it is 

 graphic, on sambar shooting, to send for the Journal of the Bombay 

 Natural History Society a few notes of my own. 



I have had a good deal of sambar, spotted deer, and other stalking in 

 different submontane forests in the N.-W. P., in the Himalayas of 

 outer Kumaon, in the spurs of the Kaimur and Vindhya ranges, and in 

 the Sivalik hills east of the Ganges. 



I think that the best stalk I ever had was in a small tract of 

 preserved forest in the Native State of Chirkhari on the left bank of 

 the Ken river. I was given a day's shooting therein, with permission 

 to shoot three stags, through the kindness of the then Political Officer 

 of Bundelkhand, who is now the Earl of Lauderdale. My camp was 

 on the right bank of the Ken in the Banda District, of which I was 

 then the Collector. Under the guidance of a local shikari, who prov- 

 ed of no great use, I crossed the river before sunrise on a lovely 

 morning in February. I well remember that, just as Mr. Inverarity 

 describes, I had my heart sent bounding, and my rifle thrown quickly 

 into position, by a row in the bushes on the bank and the pyrotechnic 

 exit therefrom of a gorgeous peacock as I arrived. The forest came 

 close down to the lovely stream, which was rushing in a great hurry, 

 and with prodigious fuss, through a narrow boulder-strewn channel, 

 about 60 yards wide, which took some crossing. I was younger in 

 those days, and did not mind the wade through the clear cold water to 

 commence my day on, a proceeding which was not without the 

 danger of being carried off my legs by the swift, and in places deep, 

 current. The jungle in the preserve was of a diversified contour. 

 There were numerous more or less lofty little hills, some separate, and 

 some in connected groups ; all covered with forest, growing amid 

 jumbled blocks of trap (?) rock of every size and shape. Lying be- 

 tween these hills were open glades of grass with scattered groups of 

 trees ; and there were many deep and craggy ravines, bush-and-tree 



