THE DEER TRIBE 253 
troops of from four to a dozen, or singly, 
while during the rutting-season the animals 
rove in more considerable herds. In jungle 
and thickly forested regions it. is a hard 
matter to come up with the sambar on foot, - 
and it is there usually shot from elephant- 
back, by the aid of beaters. In more 
open hill country it affords good stalking. 
In Ceylon it is hunted with hounds, and 
yields in this way also capital sport. These 
animals seem to revel in heat, and love 
to shelter themselves in hot, stifling valleys; 
they drink. only once in two or three days. 
It is a noticeable feature in connection 
with the antlers of the sambar that they 
are not invariably shed annually, as with 
most of the deer kind. In Ceylon, accord- 
ing. to Sir Samuel Baker, they are shed 
‘with great irregularity every third or 
fourth year.” 
Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald Heber 
Percy thus writes concerning the sambar, or 
sambur: ‘‘ Compared with the Kashmir stag, 
red deer, or wapiti, he looks like an ugly, 
r 
5 tpi ne as 524 “is 
Photo by the Duchess of Bedford) 
JAVAN RUSA STAG 
This deer is a near relative of the sambar, but has a somewhat different 
type of antler 
17 
oto by Miss E. F. 
FORMOSAN SIKA STAG 
Like its Fapanese kindred, this deer is spotted only in summer 
coarse, underbred brute. . . . Asthesambur 
is almost entirely noct rnal in its habits, it 
is most commonly shot in drives, and in many 
places it is almost impossible to obtain 
sambur otherwise; but where it can be 
managed, stalking is, of course, far better fun. 
The sportsman should be on his ground just 
before daylight, and work slowly through the 
forest at the edge of the feeding-grounds, 
taking the bottom of the hill if there are 
crops on the plain below, or, failing these, 
the edges of the open glades in the forest. 
Presently, if there are any sambur about, he 
will hear their trumpet-like call, and, creep- 
ing on, see two or three dark forms moving 
among the trees. In the grey of the morn- 
ing it is often very hard to distinguish a 
stag from a hind, and the writer has on 
several occasions had to wrat, after viewing 
the herd, till there was light enough to. 
pick his stag. Even in broad daylight it is 
difficult to judge the size of a stag’s horns 
as he stands motionless in the deep gloom 
of the forest, and what little can be seen 
