84 BIG-GAME SHOOTING IN UPPER BURMA 



with enormous heads measuring over 30 inches, 

 with a girth of 18 inches, are shot. But these 

 heads are as rare as bison heads of 40 inches, 

 and no one need be ashamed of a 24-inch head, 

 if well corrugated and with a good span. The 

 cows have short horns a few inches in length, 

 growing almost straight upwards, smooth through- 

 out, and with no girth. 



Taken all round, a bull tsaing is a hand- 

 some animal; but what a beast he is to get on 

 terms with ! The Ladak shapoo (Ovis vignei) is 

 generally considered, and with reason, a difficult 

 beast to shoot. But he is a child in cuteness 

 compared with an old bull tsaing. After many 

 years' experience of Bos sondaicus under all sorts 

 of conditions, and at all seasons, I have no 

 hesitation in declaring an old bull to be the 

 cutest, wariest beast that ever roamed the 

 jungle. He has given me longer tramps and 

 more disappointments than bison and elephants 

 put together. As so often happens, a beginner 

 goes out after tsaing, hits on red-hot tracks or 

 meets the animal face to face, and gets an easy shot 

 under peculiarly favourable circumstances, pos- 

 sibly at a young beast. Thereafter he announces 

 that tsaing are easy animals to shoot. I knew 

 one man who, in an out-of-the-way spot where 

 elephants were numerous, made a practice of 

 shooting tsaing from the back of an elephant. 

 In this way he secured some fine heads, and had 



