THE HOG-DEER. t8o. 



the quick movement of high stalks of grass, and perhaps a glimpse of the white under part 

 of a vanishing tail, are frequently the only indications to guide the sportsman's aim ; steady, 

 deliberate rifle-shooting is out of the question, and the most rapid of snap-shooting must 

 be resorted to. As in rabbit-shooting, you must fire where you think the animal is, or rather 

 will be by the time your shot can reach him, though in these days of Express rifles, it is not 

 necessary to hold so far forward as in the old times of small charges and high trajectories 

 The commonest error made is usually firing ovzr the deer, as the unpractised hand is 

 extremely apt to shoot at the waving grass-tops, instead of directing his aim some three 

 or four feet below them. When a hot corner has been found, the fusillade from a party of 

 five or six guns occasionally becomes very heavy, as deer after deer rushes at headlong 

 speed, sometimes from under the very trunks of the Elephants ; and the situation is not 

 always a very safe one. The proportion of lead expended to each Hog-Deer bagged is 

 often nearly as great as what has been calculated to be the amount required to kill each 

 man in a general action. 



Hog-Deer may be speared on favorable ground, and give splendid runs : they are 

 very fast and usually give a much longer chase than a Boar. I have heard of instances 

 of their deliberately charging a horse ; and with their sharp horns they can inflict a very 

 severe wound. If they can be driven out of long grass on to the open plain, they can be 

 coursed with greyhounds ; but they do not very often afford the chance. 



As there is nothing in Hog-Deer-shooting which calls for the exercise of any special 

 knowledge of woodcraft, its incidents do not admit of interesting description : one snap- 

 shot is much like another ; and although one may feel well satisfied with one's-self, when a 

 lucky bullet has bowled over a fat buck in full career, there is little in the attendant circum- 

 stances to impress itself on the memory, much less to be worthy of narration. 



I shall not, therefore, give any detailed account of my own experiences in Hog-Deer- 

 shooting, but I will relate a curious incident which once occurred to me, in which the conduct 

 of the deer was quite unaccountable. 



I was hunting Elephants on the left bank of the Ganges, a few miles above Hardwar, 

 on the 24th of May, 1865. I had found a Tusker standing at the edge of a long belt of 

 high reeds, bordered by a perfectly open plain covered with short grass. Taking advantage 

 of an angle in the reeds, I was walking up to the Elephant ; when, within two hundred 

 yards of him, I saw a fine buck Hog-Deer, with his horns in the velvet, lying out on the 

 plain. He gazed at me, and as I was afraid that he would go away with a rush and alarm 

 the Elephant, I tried to drive him away quietly by waving my hand, and then my handker- 

 chief, at him. He would not move, however, but lay looking at me until I had advanced 

 to within ten yards of him, when he started up and rushed into the reeds with a sharp cry. 



I shot the buck whose portrait is here given, on the 10th May, 1867. I recollect that 

 he took a tremendous deal of killing. Although first struck by a bullet from a 10-bore 

 rifle, he went away through long grass, and my friend B. and I had to follow him up on our 

 Elephants and give him several more shots before he could be secured. The horns are a 

 remarkably good pair. 



