Thameng 199 



" About the end of January the first jungle fire sweeps over the plain and 

 destroys the dry herbage, leaving small patches here and there about the 

 edges of swamps. The second burning takes place about the end of March, 

 and leaves scarcely a blade of grass behind it ; the plain is then almost 

 entirely bare, and the deer, having no covert, congregate in large herds. 

 They are then to be seen on all sides, and, the buffaloes having been with- 

 drawn to the tree-jungle, are left alone ; they become at this time exces- 

 sively wary. From the middle of February until the first showers fall at 



Fig. 55. — Group of Burmese Thameng. From a photograph by the Duchess of Bedford. 



the end of April they apparently subsist without water ; they lie in the 

 salt swamps during this period, and get the benefit of heavy dews at night." 



It is added that the pairing-season lasts from the middle of March to the 

 middle of May ; and that the hinds bring forth their fawns in October and 

 November among the rice-fields, the rice being then either in flower or in 

 ear, and at its greatest height, so that it afFords abundant covert. One fawn 

 is produced at a birth, and often remains with its dam till the second year. 

 Breeding may commence at the end of a year and a half. It is specially 

 stated that while the very young are spotted, all the adults in Burma are 

 of a uniformly brown colour. In Manipur the stags begin to shed their 

 antlers in June, but in Lower Burma they are not lost till about September. 



