Antlers 



amount of fresh succulent grass annually as 

 exists on burnt over areas. There is probably 

 a certain amount of truth in the lines put into 

 the sambhar's mouth in the 'Autobiography of 

 a Sambhar Stag ' (Leaves from an Indian Jungle). 



" Sahib ! you are steadily driving us from our 

 home on these hills. Why is the grass never 

 fired now, and why left to die down season after 

 season till it cumbers the earth with such a 

 mildewed and powdery carpeting as none but the 

 rankest herbage may penetrate when the rain 

 comes down ? The bison are going, and we follow, 

 and at no distant time these hills will stand yet 

 more desolate, deprived of all that once gladdened 

 their solitude." 



Without the most rigid protection, as exemplified 

 by the formation of Game Sanctuaries and the 

 limiting of the number of head shot annually in 

 definite areas, there can be little doubt that all 

 heavy game shooting worthy of the name will at 

 no distant date be a thing of the past in India. 



Nowadays, if the sportsman wishes to obtain a 

 good sambhar head, it is to the hilly country to 

 which he must turn his eyes, and it is to his own 

 two legs that he must trust to take him up to the 

 stag. And I do not think 'that most true shikaris 

 will be sorry that this is so. A grand old stag is 

 far too fine a quarry to end his life ignominiously 

 from a shot from a howdah whose occupant has 

 done nothing personally to get up to the fine old 



F 65 



