296 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WA YS 
CHAP. 
the heading of “ The Boar ” the number that 
is written in my diary kept at Newera Ellia 
in Ceylon from October 1851 to March 1854. 
One hundred and thirty-eight sambur were killed 
with the hounds and hunting - knife. It may 
safely be asserted that we killed an average of 
sixty every year, which would yield the large 
amount of four hundred and twenty during seven 
years. 
Allowing only four hundred as my personal 
experience of sambur in Ceylon, where the hounds 
made no distinction of sex, but ran the first scent 
they came across, it is very extraordinary that we 
never found a stag which had so recently shed its 
horns that only the base remained. 
They were constantly met when in velvet, 
sometimes only a few inches in length, but never 
completely barren, to prove that the antlers were 
only just discarded. 
We certainly proved that no season dominated 
the necessity for shedding horns, but the question 
of durability remained undecided. Since that time 
I have come to the same opinion as the natives, 
that there is no fixed period for the duration of a 
sambur’s antlers. 
Although the horns of sambur are sometimes 
large, I cannot admire them as graceful examples of 
a deer’s antlers ; they have only three points each, 
forming a total of six, which gives a barren 
appearance to a large head. 
There are several deer in Asia which are limited 
