THE BROW-ANTLERED DEER 
(CERVUS ELDI) 
L OCALLY known as the thamin , this curious deer is fairly com- 
mon in parts of both Upper and Lower Burma. The antlers are 
remarkable for the prolongation of the brow tine, which con- 
tinues in the same curve as the beam; they have an indefinite 
number of short points along the top curve and usually a few 
snags along the inside curve of the brow tine. 
In Manipur, where the ground is much more swampy, there is a race 
of thamin with hard skin instead of hair under the fetlocks. 
When travelling in Burma one is often able to enjoy the hospitality of the 
monks, and one year in Upper Burma the writer and a friend occupied for 
some days the guest house of a Buddhist Monastery. Knowing their aver- 
sion to the taking of life, we were careful to ask the Ponge, or chief priest, 
if he minded our shooting in his district, and were pleased to find that he 
did not object to our doing so. However, during our stay, we had a curious 
example of the lengths to which the people will go in support of their own 
tenets. A four -foot cobra being found in our servants’ kitchen, the chief 
priest dashed out of his chamber with a special implement, evidently kept 
for the purpose, consisting of a stick with a loop at the end, and caught it 
alive; and when I asked him what he was going to do, said he intended to 
liberate it in the jungle. We begged him to take it a long way off before 
releasing it. 
The thamin in this district were found in thick bush country, and we 
hunted them from native bullock carts, jumping off for the shot, a not 
very sporting way of doing it, I fear. I must explain that during our 
short stay we could not induce the local shikari to adopt other methods, 
though I feel sure that the deer could have been stalked on foot perfectly 
well. 
The natives have a firm belief in Nats, or spirits of the woods, and once 
when a stalk failed my shikari went through a curious ceremony to invoke 
their aid. Borrowing my rifle he placed it against a tree, and then carefully 
rolled up an offering of betel nut in a leaf, stuck it in the bark of the tree, 
and prayed most earnestly before it for several minutes. His petitions were 
effective, for the same morning I not only got a good stag myself, but found 
a dead one which my friend had wounded the previous evening. 
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