224 
A NATURALIST ON THE PROWL. 
distinctly through the fog, and it was this, that he was a 
miserable creature and good might come of my knowing 
it. However, I took him in flank and rear, and laid 
snareful questions in his path, until I had got a tolerable 
idea of the resources of his little community. They 
cultivate rice in the monsoon, and some fields produce a 
second crop in the cold season. They can grow sugarcane 
too, and coffee is almost wild. They collect myrabolams 
in the jungle, for which the Forest Department pays them 
at a fair rate. They have no lack of cattle, but the cows 
yield little milk, and what they yield the Koonbee does 
not use. He keeps no poultry, because it is against the 
rules of his caste to eat fowls or their eggs ; but he doubts 
whether the jungle fowl is a true fowl, and he gives him- 
self the benefit of the doubt, snaring it when he can. He 
sets most ingenious traps also for wild cats, against the 
eating of which there is no law, and nooses for hares, which, 
though not so tasty as wild cats, are not to be despised. 
Sometimes (my authority is Yelleep) the wild dogs kill 
a Sambhur near the village, and he robs them of their 
prey and dines on venison. Of fruits he has the Plantain 
and the wild Mango, and, above all, the nutritious and 
delicate Jackfruit in unlimited quantity. Of wood for 
