182 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



pools puddled up by the feet of wild animals. This was 

 what often fell to the lot of the forest officers of those 

 early days. I doubt if many of them would have gone on 

 with the task but for the love of sport and adventure which 

 probably led to their original selection of a jungle life; 

 and there is not one of them whose health did not, after 

 a few years, give way under the combined assaults of 

 malaria and a fiery sun. 



Vast tracts of the most sterile portion of this region 

 are absolutely without water during some months of the 

 hot season; and in many others there is no more than 

 perhaps a single small pool, in some shaded hollow of the 

 rocks, for many miles on end. The only animal which 

 can inhabit such wastes as these is the nilgai, which can 

 and does pass many days without drinking ; and scattered 

 herds of them are accordingly found even in the driest 

 parts. The bison wanders over the whole of the forest 

 and hilly portion of the tract, wherever the absence of 

 man and cattle, and abundance of bamboo cover and water, 

 afford him the needful conditions. The deer tribe com- 

 prises the Sambar {Rusa aristotelis) and the Axis or Spotted 

 Deer {Axis maculatus) in large numbers, and, more rare, 

 the Barking Deer {Cervulus aureus), besides the little 

 four-horned antelope already mentioned. The Hog Deer 

 {Axis forcinus) does not, I believe, occur so far to the 

 south-west as the trap country. The spotted deer is 

 never found except in the neighbourhood of the larger 

 rivers. Abundance of water and green shade appear to 

 be first conditions of its existence. A few barMng deer 

 are found scattered all over the tract, though never very 

 far from water. 



Sambar are rarely found in the very dry interior, but 

 sometimes travel to rest during the day to a long distance 

 from the water hole or stream where they drink at night. 

 On the level table-land they are not very numerous, 

 preferring the slopes and summits of the hills. But no 

 animal changes its location so much, according to the 

 season of the year, abundance of food, etc., as the sambar. 

 Wherever the bison is found, the sambar is certain to be 

 as well; but his range is not so confined as the bison's. 



