CENTRAL ASIA 
surface. During the early winter, when the frost has killed much of the 
vegetation, and the stags are roaring — they begin in early October — 
should be the best chance. 
I do not know that anyone has seriously hunted the stags at this season. 
Major Cumberland successfully hunted them on the Yarkand and Tarim 
in mid-winter. The natives, of course, are always after them in the sum- 
mer when their horns are still soft — the worst season for hunting in many 
ways — whereas during the period when the stags are worth shooting 
from our point of view they are not so harassed. 
A deer of the same type inhabits the jungles on the Manas River, a region 
far removed from the Tarim basin, but of like character. So far as we can 
judge the two are of the same variety, for no one has yet brought home a 
specimen to disprove it. 
These same districts are haunted by a few tigers of the small Central 
Asian variety, which inter grades between the large Manchurian tnongolica 5 
or longipilis and the vigata of Northern Persia. They are not to be seen 
easily in the low-lying jungles; but on the lower northern slopes of the 
Tian Shan they are probably more easy to get on terms with. In the 
Jirgalan Valley they are often reported, as well as on other tributaries 
of the Tekkes, such as the Kash and Kunges. Here they inhabit the hills 
up to 4,000 and 5,000 feet and live by preying on the herds of wild pig 
which abound in the scrub below the forest belt. 
DOUGLAS CARRUTHERS. 
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