48 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



the fair-skinned races; and the appropriate seat of the 

 devotee is still upon its black and white skin. It is too 

 well known to require any minute description. Suffice 

 it to say, that not even in Africa — the land of antelopes 

 — is there any species which surpasses the " black buck " 

 in loveliness or grace. In Central India, although this 

 antelope attains the full size of body, the horns of the 

 buck (the female is hornless and of a fawn colour) rarely 

 exceed a length of 22 inches. I have shot one with 

 horns 24j inches, and seen a pair that measured 26 

 inches. The longest horns are probably attained in 

 Gujerat, and about Bhurtpur in Northern India. In all 

 the corn districts of Central India it is found in con- 

 siderable herds, and does much damage to the young 

 crops. I have seen herds in the Sagar country, imme- 

 diately after the Mutiny of 1857, when they were little 

 molested, which must have numbered a thousand or more 

 individuals. A tolerable shot could at that time kill 

 almost any number he chose. In most cultivated dis- 

 tricts, tracts of the poorer land are kept under grass for 

 cattle-grazing, etc., and these preserves are generally the 

 favourite midday resorts and the breeding-grounds of the 

 antelopes. Thence in the evening they troop out in 

 squadrons on to the cultivated lands in the vicinity ; and 

 all the night long continue grazing on the tender wheat 

 shoots, returning in the gray of the morning to their safe 

 retreat. Many will, however, remain in the fields the 

 whole day, sleeping and grazing at intervals, unless driven 

 off by the cultivators. In such places the voices of the 

 watchers in the fields will be heard in the still night shout- 

 ing continuously at the antelopes ; but they seldom succeed 

 in effecting more than to move them about from field to 

 field, doing more damage probably than if they were left 

 alone, for a buck killed in the morning will always be 

 found filled nearly to bursting with the green food. 

 Although many of them are shot by the village shikaris 

 at night, and more snared and netted by the professional 

 hunters called Pardis (who use a trained bullock in stalk- 

 ing round the herds to screen their movements), the 

 resources of the natives are altogether insufficient, in a 



