Antlers 



elephant, and will not look up high enough to spot 

 you on its back. 



In long grass you can have great sport and very 

 pretty shooting with the little hog deer, an animal 

 so like a sambhar en miniature. He will get up close 

 to the elephant and go jumping through the grass, 

 often breaking back and giving one a difficult shot 

 with one's body screwed round at an angle. He is 

 a lover of the open tall grass areas, and has to be 

 sought there. As we shall see later, he can also be 

 stalked out on those lovely open grassy maidans 

 or savannahs which are to be found amid the sal 

 forests. 



The little red 'barking deer or kakar, whose 

 presence is always swiftly and annoyingly pro- 

 claimed by a series of short sharp barks the 

 moment it is frightened, is come across in the tree 

 forest ; he offers a small bull's-eye for the rifle 

 and is by no means so easily shot from the pad as 

 the larger animals. 



In our slow onward progress we come to a small 

 village footpath, and as the elephant puts her fore- 

 foot out towards the path a small hare who had 

 been squatting in his form under a grass tussock 

 jumps up and bolts along the path. We were lolling 

 easily in the front position behind the mahout, and 

 the jump the hathi gave nearly sent us out side- 

 ways |rom the great saddle. It is curious how a 

 mighty beast like an elephant, who will face tiger 

 with intrepidity and coolness, loathes small animals, 



13 



