THE BROW-ANTLERED DEER 153 



with a little practice, the size of a head can 

 be judged almost to an inch. 



I have said that the horns of thamin 

 appear to have decreased in size. This is no 

 doubt partly due to the large number of good 

 heads which have been bagged ; but chiefly, I 

 think, owing to the preponderance of does. The 

 thamin in Burma suffer at present from this 

 cause to the same extent as the oorial in the 

 Punjab. For this the game laws, framed with 

 the best intentions, are responsible. Sound in 

 other respects, they are no longer applicable 

 to thamin. As they stand at present, there is 

 no limit to the number of thamin which may 

 be killed, nor any specification as to the size 

 of the head, nor is there any charge for shooting 

 them. But the shooting of females is strictly 

 prohibited. Many a man, therefore, who is 

 no sportsman at heart, goes out after thamin 

 with the hope of shooting a good stag ; but with 

 the fixed determination to shoot something 

 rather than return empty-handed. He knows 

 he is within the letter of the law if he kills 

 anything with horns, however small. So when 

 he finds that no. big stag presents himself, he 

 blazes off at the first animal he sees with horns, 

 and drives back to the zayat in his bullock-cart 

 with a wretched little beast of twenty inches, 

 and perhaps more than one, packed away in 

 the cart behind him; whereas he had much 



