xxiii. 
bears, bison, sambur, spotted-deer, muntjack, or barking-deer, mouse- 
deer, wild hogj jungle fowl, spurfowl, hares, partridges, quails, also 
woodcock and snipe in the season. The tiger is rarely met with on 
the higher range. Panthers arc more numerous, and the planters and 
other residents occasionally have their dogs carried off by these 
prowling depredators. There are very few bison, and those only 
found in the lower thickly wooded valleys where bears are also 
occasionally met with. Sambur are not numerous ; none are found 
on the upper ranges. The spottcd-dccr inhabits the bamboo jungles 
on the slopes of the hills, and has at rare intervals been seen in the 
neighbourhood of Yercaud ; but it is now so reduced in number 
that the most persevering sportsman rarely falls in with it. The 
muntjack, generally known as the jungle sheep, is pretty numerous 
amongst the Coffee gardens and jungles of Yercaud ; but from its 
wary habits and the jungle being so continuous and thick it cannot be 
easily driven^ and is consequently seldom shot. Wild hog are also 
rather numerous, but for the same reasons are not often killed. The 
little mouse-deer is rarely seen, but its foot prints are found in many 
places. The jungle fowl, spurfowl, hares, partridges and quails, afford 
an occasional shot during a morning's walk, but good dogs are re- 
quired to find them. There is tolerable woodcock and snipe shooting 
during the season from November to March. 
" The Malayalies are great adepts at netting game. Even the 
tiger being occasionally captured by them ; the mode they adopt is 
to enclose a large space with nets and drive the game towards them, 
when the animals become entangled in the meshes and are destroyed 
in their attempts to escape. 
** The cause of these mountains not having become so fre- 
quented, as they deserve to be, is owing to the bad name they have 
obtained for fever. Many people at Madras would as soon encamp in 
the most deadly jungle as go to the Shervaroys, there is no doubt that 
in occasional seasons when the south-west monsoon has been late in 
setting in, there is a good deal of fever on the hills during the months 
of May and June, and at long intervals there have been severe out- 
breaks of fever ; but few stations in India are entirely free from such 
