EARLY DAYS IN OUDH 21 
their numbers or to appease the appetites of the 
staff or of the workmen in the forest; to these they 
formed a valuable addition to an otherwise meagre 
diet, and no doubt helped to ward off the attacks of 
malaria, a disease to which all were liable. Next 
to the spotted-deer in frequency came the parha, 
or hog-deer ; every patch of grass seemed to hold 
some of these animals, although both they and the 
pig were commonly netted by the Tharus. Shooting 
hog-deer from an elephant is perhaps the best train- 
ing for one who wishes to become an expert with the 
rifle at running game. It was seldom that a long 
run in the open was risked—short rushes through 
the burnt grass from cover to cover was the order of 
the day ; it was, in fact, like rabbit-shooting on a 
gigantic scale without the advantage to the sports- 
man of the spread of the shot. Swamp-deer were 
then not uncommon in the lowlands in the winter, 
and in the tree-forest in the summer, and good heads 
of twelve and even sixteen points were not rare. 
The stag afforded an easy target when he rose, often 
with his massive antlers covered with dry grass ; but 
if he kept to the bogs covered with high reeds, where 
the elephant could not follow, only occasional 
glimpses of his retreating form could be secured. 
Sdémbhar were frequent throughout the Tarai, but 
here a head of even 36 inches was rare, for these 
deer are at their best in the mountains, and thrive 
in the climate of the hills or in the dry plateaux of 
Central India; the damp of the submontane areas 
seems to reduce the size of the antlers, while causing 
the body to grow unwieldy both in size and weight. 
Of other deer, the kékdr, or barking-deer, was 
