June 1, 1900.1 THE TEOPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
817 
perhaps, owing to his own temper, never 
good at the best of times, as to the parti- 
cular devotion of our dogs to the sport of 
elephant baiting. Elephant once winded, 
though perhaps half a mile distant, there 
is no getting those dogs off. A wild ele- 
phant bayed hj a pack of dogs is a sight 
well worth seeing, and perhaps worth the 
risk of seeing once, not oftener. The one 
occasion on which I actually witnessed such 
a scene is not likely to fade from my me- 
mory. The terrible turmoil and tumult 
caused by the baying hounds, and the wrath- 
ful screams and trumpetings of 
THE INDIGNANT ELEPHANT, 
the wrenching off and thrashing of branches, 
the rattle of pebbles, the final flight of self 
and dog boy down the narrow game track, 
elephant giving chase, dogs, fall cry bring-, 
ing up the rear and threatening flanks 
Not again will I venture to view an ele- 
phant at bay in heavy jungle armed with 
a '40 Winchester rine and a Canadian 
hand-axe. We escaped chiefly owing to an 
intimate knowledge of the forest, and the 
propinquity of some old sawpits, in which 
our pursuer got a check which enabled us 
to make the nearest tea clearing. The hounds 
thereafter enjoyed another good half hour's 
baiting, and came home beaming with plea- 
sure at their morning's fun. 
Sambur are, as I have inferred, very plen- 
tiful, being constantly supplied with rein- 
forcements fiom the unbroken wilderness, 
extending from our ridge east and north ; 
but, owing to a partial annual migration, 
more plentiful during the N. P^. monsoon and 
its later fine weather season. Dtiring the 
dry season — February and March— these deer 
are found low down, and come into the tea 
and cardamoms at night, and may be heard 
roaring up to ten o'clock in the morning. I 
have heard a stag as late as ten o'clock roar 
a dozen times, apparently challenging the 
wailing cry of old watchmen set to 
frighten off monkeys in the cardamom clear- 
ing. At any rate, the stag replied i-oar for 
shout for fully a quarter of an hour. 
Pig, which afford excellent sport hunted 
with the kind of dogs we keep— the only 
kind suitable to a very extensive and broken 
country, a mixed lot of half-breeds— are 
generally plentiful, and in some seasons ex- 
traordinarily numerous. The hill-coimtry 
pig differs in one respect from his relative 
of the plains in being more massively built, 
of greater length, but comparatively lower at 
the withers. \Ve can generally 
" RAID pig" 
on the usual estate rounds without interfer- 
ing with our day's work, more especially 
by making an earlier start than usual, and 
taking up a trnil from one of the ravines 
and swamps interspei'sed in the tea fields 
where pig come down at night to gnib. I 
have accounted for over thirty pig in a 
season by this plan. A very large, but not 
too old, boar will often supply sport and 
continue to inflict reverses and damages for 
weeks before he is finally brought home trot- 
ters up. This particular branch of hunting 
has a peculiar fascination of its own ; the 
strained earnestness of one moment giving 
way, perhaps, at the next to ^omQ luclicrou? 
incident. On the whole, however, it mayb 
said of the hill-born pig that familiarity 
with him does not breed contempt, but 
usually something very much the reverse. 
Amongst other game which this district 
holds is the barking deer, common in almost 
any low jungle and scrubland below 3,500 ft. 
THE SPOTTED AXIS, 
though numerous in the plains, is of less fre" 
quent occurrence in the planting district of 
Matale, yet fairly common about the estates 
lying in the northern end of the valley. With 
the barking deer excellent sport, similar in all 
respects to roedeer hiuiting, may be had with 
dogs on the open downs interspersed Avith 
clumps of trees and bracken and fern brake, 
which are a feature - the most beautiful 
feature— of the eastern slopes of our Matale 
Hill, and many an enjoyable camp can I re- 
call in the company of old sportmg chums. 
Given fine weather, it has always been good 
sport. Perhaps one, perhaps even three deer 
bagged before 9 a.m., not to mention such 
stray items as hare, jungle fowl, pigeon, and 
perhaps a couple or so of snipe. 
As I look up fi'om my writing table the 
upper slopes of the great ridge are glowing 
with the last rays of sunset. Below all the 
heavy forest is almost black. Far away to the 
left, just below the ridge, three objects keep 
appearing and disappearing. There is a red 
flash and it is gone, then another and 
another. The 
SAMBUR ARE COMING DOWN 
to graze on the young nilloo shoots. They are 
more succulent than on the eastern slope. The 
flanks of these deer are very glossy, anci reflect 
the light to an extraordinary degree. Now 
at sunset they flash glowing red ; after ten in 
the morning you should look for something 
almost white ; at and soon after dawn, looking 
east, they will show almost black. Get the 
glasses off the old boar's head in the porch, 
and let us have a look at this lot. What do 
you make them out to be ? All three bucks, 
all three in the pink of condition, but only one 
with a good head. They will disperse later on 
when they have done a bit of swaggei-ing on 
that conical knoll, and we will start tomorrow 
early with a bottle of cold tea and a couple of 
cabin biscuits in the cartridge bag, and see if 
we can strike the trail of this fine fellow. 
—Field, March 31. B.G.R. 
• ♦■ 
The A^sam Rubbkr PfjANTATioNS.— The total 
quantity of home and foreign rubber turned out 
from the forests of As.sam during 1898-99 was 
3,599 maunds, wiiicli, compared with the totiil of 
the previous year showed an increase of753niannds. 
The increased outturn was most marked in the 
Cachar, Darrang and Lakhimpur Forest Divisions 
and was due to more active operations having 
been carried out in the Manipur, Dalfa, Naga, 
and other hills in response to an increased de- 
mand accompanied by a higli rise in prices. The 
outturn, though considerably above that of the 
previous year, was below that of 1896-97, which 
was over 4,000 maunds, and is due to the con- 
stant but steady destruction of the trees by the 
excessive tapping of the previous years, induced 
by the great demand for rubber, which fetches 
about four shillings a pouud on the London 
market. ~Pio?iee2% 
