THE INDIAN ANTELOPE.. 1 15 



no buck. I therefore ran on, and soon saw him on his knees, and before I reached him he 

 was dead. The bullet had entered the flank and passed out at the opposite shoulder. His 

 horns were about twenty-three inches in length. 



On the march with my Regiment from Subathii to Delhi in 1863, when near the latter 

 station, I one morning left the Grand Trunk road, and, accompanied only by a syce carrying 

 my rifle, made a circuit across country in the direction of my next halting place. Before 

 going very far I got a fair shot at a buck, which, however, galloped off on three legs. I 

 had no dog with me, so remounting my horse, I at once gave chase. The ground was hard- 

 but very rough, being principally ' gram ' fields, in which 'the clods are left unbroken, and 

 although they crumble easily under the weight of the horse, they very much impede the 

 progress of a lighter animal, especially a wounded one. So it proved in this case ; I had not 

 galloped above half a mile before the buck began to tire, and a short distance farther on 

 he fell completely exhausted. 



In the course of the morning two more buck fell to my rifle and I was making for my 

 tent, perfectly satisfied with the day's work, when I suddenly came in sight of a solitary 

 buck with horns finer than any I had yet seen. I determined that I would spare no trouble to 

 gain possession of such a trophy, but I soon found that the buck was very wide awake indeed, 

 and knew the range of a rifle well (Express rifles had not then been invented). Although 

 not apparently much frightened, he contrived to preserve a distance of at least two 

 hundred and fifty yards, and all my stratagems to approach nearer were unavailing. At last 

 he crossed a deep cut lane fringed by trees, and I thought that my chance had come, as by 

 running down the lane I should probably be in time to get a fair shot if he continued in the 

 direction in which he was then going. Just as I was about to put my scheme in practice, 

 a puff of smoke issued from behind one of the trees, the crack of a rifle reached my ear, 

 and the buck rolled over ! Running up I found that my friend R., from whom I had parted 

 in the morning, had chanced to cross my route, had seen my ineffectual attempts to get near 

 the buck, which I had driven in his direction, and had taken advantage of the unexpected 

 chance. 



Though of course disappointed at my own want of success, I was very glad that R. 

 had bagged such a fine head. We measured the horns carefully ; they were just over twenty- 

 six inches in length, and a very perfect pair. The head used afterwards always to hang in 

 R.'s room, which I never entered without being asked whether I had ever shot a buck 

 like that ! » 



When quartered at Meerut, from 1863 to 1866, I made many expeditions after Black 

 Buck. One of the best places that I discovered was in the neighbourhood of Surujpiir, 

 a village not many miles from the Ghazfabad Railway station. 



Having on one occasion driven over to Ghaziabad, to which place I had sent on a horse, 

 and my camp having preceded me a day or two, I made the remainder of the journey to 

 Surujpur on horseback. There was no regular road, and I had to ask my way from time 

 to time, frequently receiving the evasive and unsatisfactory answers which the tiller of the 

 soil delights in giving, with a view probably to putting a stop to further questioning. Riding 



