Big Game Shooting, volume 2 (of 2)

by Clive Phillipps-Wolley

XXXV. OVIS BLANFORDI

This variety is found in Khelat, and a few specimens have been procured near Quetta. Its horns are described as being longer and more slender than those of O. cycloceros or O. Vignei, and as having a second twist outwards at the ends. It has a white beard, unlike either shapoo or oorial.

XXXVI. MARKHOR (Capra megaceros vel Falconeri)

Native names: Cashmere, ‘Markhor’; Ladak, ‘Rache’; Aster, ‘Boom’

Whether this king among goats deserves his name of ‘snake-eater’ or not is hardly likely to be settled. Shikaris all believe that markhor do eat snakes, some going as far as to say that they suck the snakes out of their holes, and swallow them like macaroni; and Colonel Kinloch supports the theory.

But though some hundreds of markhor have been shot by Europeans, the fact has hitherto not been proved; and the writer ventures in all humility to suggest that the tale is derived from some old legend, and refers, in spite of the Persian name which may have become corrupted, to the long snake-like horns.

Be this as it may, an old markhor swaggering along a ledge on a precipitous hillside, with his long black beard and white mane floating down to his knees, showing off every inch of his beautiful horns—as no beast knows better how to do, except perhaps a really big stag in the rutting season—is one of the most glorious sights in the Himalayas.

The Astor markhor

The beast looks such a gentleman with his lean head and small ears, his powerful back and quarters, and his dignified carriage. Alas! it is all looks! His smell is something fearful, and manners he has none. Ibex and burrel can be trusted, when they are lying down after their morning feed, at all events not to move far; but markhor, no. You may watch a flock feeding till late in the morning, and they will lie down comfortably, apparently for the day; you begin your stalk with everything in your favour; suddenly there is a clatter of stones and a cloud of dust, you peep over a spur, and see the whole flock galloping wildly down the hill. After going half a mile, they probably pull up, begin feeding again, and again stretch themselves out on the ground as if nothing had happened. This little manœuvre probably necessitates your climbing painfully back to the top of the ridge, and starting your stalk afresh, the intervening ground being impracticable. Once more you try, leaving a man on the top of the hill to watch and signal what the beasts do. You stalk carefully on; the watcher makes no sign; you creep on the last hundred yards, to the exact spot you wish to reach, and there is nothing. You search the ground as far as you can get, and there are only a few footprints leading over impassable ground; you climb back again, probably the only way you can go, vowing vengeance on the watcher, and he tells you that the markhor lay quiet till you were beginning your last crawl in—every second he expected to hear the shot: suddenly they jumped up and disappeared, and owing to the steepness of the ground he could not tell which way they had gone. This sort of thing will happen over and over again, particularly in Astor.

Perseverance combined with good management always brings luck in the end, but big bags of really fine markhor are not to be expected; one fair chance for each fortnight on the shooting ground is a good allowance.

It is always a pretty sight seeing markhor move down to their feeding ground in the evening from the crags above where they have been lying during the afternoon. Full gallop they come, sending the stones whizzing in front of them, over the most breakneck ground as if it were a level plain; rearing up on their hind legs and butting at one another, a venerable old fifty-incher probably playing with his great-grandson, a young spark of only twenty; the whole lot of them thoroughly enjoying the frolic. Ibex will play, and prettily too, but no beast appears so thoroughly to enter into the fun of a good skylark as a markhor. The master buck of the flock, however, seems to keep the youngsters in pretty good order. The writer was much amused once, watching a flock coming down a particularly difficult cliff. The best buck led the way, the flock following in single file soberly enough, the ground apparently was not safe even for a markhor to frolic on; turning a corner, the old fellow came to a wall of rock that, after careful inspection, he did not think good enough to descend, and he turned back to take another route. Just as he made up his mind, one of the smaller bucks in rear evidently chaffed him. The old fellow went for him at once, drove him right up to the edge of the cliff with his horns, as nearly as possible pushed him over, and then, with an air of great importance, led the flock round his own way.

1. Cashmere

2. Astor

3. Trans-Indus

4. Afghanistan

Varieties of markhor

Hitherto most writers have divided markhor into only two varieties, viz. the spiral and straight horned; but the type of horn obtained in Astor is so different from that in Cashmere, and again that in Afghanistan from that in the lower Trans-Indus ranges, that any sportsman can distinguish them at a glance.

The writer has consequently adhered to Colonel Kinloch’s theory, that there are four distinct varieties of this goat, classifying the two spiral types under the name of Megaceros, and the two straight-horned types under that of Jerdoni. In the British Museum the name Falconeri is applied to all four.

The first variety of Capra megaceros is that found in Cashmere on the Pir Punjal and Kajnag ranges; its horns make occasionally three complete spirals, whereas the horns of the second or Astor variety rarely have more than one; and as the horns are measured along the curve, it follows that a 40-in. horn from Astor is far bigger than one of the same length from Cashmere. The Astor markhor is also a larger animal than the Cashmere one, often measuring a couple of inches higher at the shoulder.

As regards habits, the Cashmere markhor is a thoroughly forest-loving beast. He will come out to eat the young grass on the upper slopes of the hill, but his real home is among precipitous cliffs in the middle of forest, and well worth watching those cliffs are when the sun first comes out after heavy rain. If there are any markhor about, they are pretty sure to appear and sun themselves.

The Astor variety, on the contrary, live almost entirely in the open, only taking to the strips of forest when driven there by the gadflies in the summer. In the winter they come down to the cliffs overhanging the main streams, working up about May, till they join the ibex, who never seem to leave the higher ground. In June both ibex and markhor may be seen feeding together. The writer saw a combined flock of nearly one hundred beasts, male and female, in the amphitheatre at the head of the Dashkat or Datchnar valley. Stalk them? Of course we tried, in spite of the long odds against one with a flock of that size. There was a ravine leading up towards them, which we reached all right by crawling on hands and knees through some thick low scrub; then we crept up the ravine till it died away into open ground and found ourselves planted within three hundred yards of the head of the flock, some dozen buck markhor and ibex. There we lay for nearly an hour and a half hoping they would feed towards us, and a capital opportunity we had of comparing the relative size of the beasts; the markhor with his superior height and length making the ibex look quite cobby in comparison. Of course an old buck markhor must needs feed ahead of the rest, well out of shot, get our wind, and lead the whole lot at a gallop back to the rocks on the far side of the basin. There the ibex stayed, but the markhor went clean away over the crest of the hill.

In the evening, while we were watching the ibex in the vain hope they would come down again, behold on the very line the markhor had left by in the morning three male ibex and another flock of markhor appeared descending into the basin. As the markhor were coming down at a good pace we started to cut them off. On came the markhor, which we recognised as a flock we had been hunting all the previous week on another part of the ground. A stiff climb took us near where we had last seen them, and creeping on the shikari who was in front came almost face to face with one, upon which the alarm call began to sound furiously. A run forward only brought the writer within sight of a pair of horns moving off about eighty yards away, but while pushing on to get a shot, suddenly the buck that had convinced us as to the identity of the flock by his upright horns, came into full view broadside on at fifty yards. He rolled over stone-dead to the shot, and as he was lying doubled up with his head underneath him a gun-carrier was sent down to him, while I ran on fast to try for another shot. The rest of the flock, however, had vanished, and as the chase was abandoned a noise was heard: looking round, the spectacle presented itself of the beautiful 50-in. markhor (such was the first impression; in reality it was not quite forty) slipping from the clumsy Cashmeree’s hands, rolling down the slope over one precipice, then over another, and lodging by the greatest luck just on the top of a third; the horns were sadly scarred and chipped, but were fortunately not broken. Many heads of both markhor and ibex get utterly spoilt in Astor by the animals falling over cliffs when shot.

As regards Capra Jerdoni, the straight-horned markhor, the first variety, with a perfectly straight axis to the horn, is found all over the low ranges that run parallel to the right bank of the Indus below Attock; it used to be found in fair numbers near Sheikh Budin, a small station near Dera Ismail Khan, and in the hills, or rather the steep ravines, in the plateau behind Dera Ghazi Khan. The country beyond these places belongs to more or less inhospitable tribes and, for the present at all events, is practically closed against the sportsman. Near Quetta markhor are reported to be obtainable, and in Beluchistan there should be a chance of getting Capra ægagrus and Ovis Blanfordi as well as Capra Jerdoni. Hunting straight-horned markhor is scarcely a summer amusement, as the heat is terrific on the low hills, and drinkable water is extremely scarce.

The second variety is found in Afghanistan, another practically closed shooting ground. It appears to be a link between the straight horn and the spiral, more generally approaching the spiral in size of body and general appearance. As the Astor variety probably extends some distance to the west of Gilgit, and this second variety is found in Northern Afghanistan, it seems possible that its corkscrew bend may be more pronounced towards its eastern limit and less so as it extends to the south-west. The illustration on p. 312 gives the four marked types.

Kinloch notes that markhor horns twist the reverse way to those of domestic goats; and the writer, after looking at many hundreds of tame goats in India for the express purpose of studying their horns, and after inspecting the heads in the British Museum and other collections, is able to confirm the fact that the horns of all wild animals that twist at all do so outwards, while those of tame animals appear invariably to twist inwards.

Measurements

Authority	Height at shoulder	Weight as shot	Horns round curve	Straight	Girth at base	No. of spirals	Span at tips	Remarks
Capra megaceros
No. 1. Cashmere
	ins.	lbs.	ins.	ins.	ins.		ins.
Col. Cuppage	..	..	63	..	..	..	..
Major Ward	..	..	59	..	..	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	..	..	56	..	..	..	..	”
Major FitzHerbert	..	..	55½	..	..	..	..
Major Ward	42	..	53	..	9½	2½	26	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	..	..	48½	..	..	..	..	”
Col. Kinloch	44	..	47½	..	..	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Major Ward	..	..	47	..	..	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Capt. H. Brooke	..	..	45	..	..	..	..
Major Ward	..	..	43	..	11	2½	31	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Col. Kinloch	..	..	41	..	..	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
”	..	..	40	..	..	..	..	”
Average of good head	..	..	40	..	11	..	..
Not classified
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	.. A	54½	..	10½	..	26½	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. M. Kennard	..	.. A	54	..	10⅝	..	33¾	”
Sir V. Brooke	..	.. B	53¼	42½	11½	..	52	”
Mr. R. Ward	..	.. B	53½	..	..	..	37½	”
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	.. A	53	24¼	9¼	..	30¼	”
Mr. M. Kennard	..	.. B	52¾	39¾	12⅛	..	33¾	”
A, probably Cashmere; B, Astor.
No. 2. Astor
Major Ward	41	240	..	..	..	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	..	..	63	..	..	..	..	”
”	..	..	61	..	..	..	..	”
”	..	..	53	..	11	..	45	”
”	..	..	52	..	12½	..	43	”
Capt. H. Brooke	..	..	49	..	..	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Major Ward	..	..	48	..	..	..	..
The Writer	..	..	39¼	..	13	..	..
”	..	..	38	..	14	..	..
Average of good head	..	..	40	..	13	..	..
Capra Jerdoni
No. 1. Trans-Indus
H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh	..	..	..	38½	10½	23⅞	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Major Ward	..	..	..	36	..	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	47⅞	33	9¼	..	19¾	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	32¼	9¾	..	28	”
Col. Kinloch	..	..	..	32	..	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Sir V. Brooke	..	..	45¼	30¾	8¾	..	21½	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
British Museum	..	..	..	30½	10¾	..	..	Skull No. 120
Capt. H. Brooke	..	..	..	29	..	..	..
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	39	27⅛	8⅜	..	21½	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. G. Landseer, ‘The Field,’ 1873	..	..	..	25½	..	..	..	”
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	25⅜	8⅜	..	21½	”
Average of good head	..	..	..	24	10	..	..
No. 2. Afghanistan
Major FitzHerbert	..	..	48	38	13	..	27
British Museum	..	..	40	32½	12	..	..	Skull No. 121
Major Ward	..	..	..	35	..	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Average of good head	..	..	40	30	12	..	..

XXXVII. IBEX (Capra sibirica)

Cashmere, ‘Kale’; Ladak, ‘Skeen’; Pangi and Lahoul, ‘Tangrol’

In his summer coat

Ibex vary very much in colour according to age, locality and the season. In their winter coats the old bucks, though looking almost white at a distance, and showing up conspicuously among the brown young bucks and females, are really very patchy looking at close quarters, the head and part of the neck being a sepia brown, the middle of the body generally yellowish white with a dark stripe on the back, and the quarters again brown, with legs of dark sepia. In the summer they are sepia-coloured all over, the head and neck often darker than the body—in fact, an old buck looks sometimes almost black at a distance; the beard is thick and very dark brown.

Ibex are to be found pretty nearly everywhere in the higher ranges of hills from Gilgit to Spiti, though they do not appear to cross the Sutlej to the eastward of Spiti. To name a particular valley would be only misleading. Favourite districts soon get shot out as regards good heads, and the only trustworthy information to work on is that of the year previous. If you get a good nullah, there is no sport in the Himalayas more charming. Parts of the ground no doubt will test your nerve as a cragsman, but it does not entail the perpetual climbing of markhor and ther ground, and in April, May and June a fair number of good chances may be relied upon. As Ward says, ‘Patience and steady shooting are what are necessary; a man does not require to be a first-rate walker or a really brilliant shot during that season; but he does require to be enduring, and not too eager about getting up at once to his game.’ Of course, if the sportsman blazes away at indifferent heads he will not get the big ones; but if he sees a good head one day and cannot get it, if he does not disturb the beast, he will see him again next day somewhere near the same place, and sooner or later be able to close accounts with him; ten heads, all over thirty inches, which would probably include two or three over forty inches, would be a far better bag for two months’ work than twenty heads in the same time, including a lot of rubbishy little things about twenty-five inches.

If you wish thoroughly to enjoy your stalk, and the ground is not too difficult, insist upon going first and making your shikari carry your rifle behind you. He will probably object, but be firm, and listen to none of his plausible arguments; carry out your own stalk without asking his advice, simply telling him what you mean to do. When you are within two hundred yards of where you expect to get your shot, make him lie down, take the rifle from him and go on alone. Warn him beforehand that if he moves till you tell him, you’ll fine him. When you reach your place, get your wind before you look over; you will see perhaps fifteen or twenty ibex in front of you; don’t be in a hurry; make sure that you have really selected the best head for your first shot, and take pains to get it home. When you fire, the smoke will hang in your eyes, and you will dimly see the flock scatter. Keep your head now—don’t show yourself; and if you are in about the right place, a little above, but nearly on a level with the flock, and about eighty yards off, not closer, you will probably see the flock walking up the hillside, occasionally turning round to gaze at the 40-incher lying dead below them. With cartridges handy, and steady shooting, you should add the next two or three best heads to your score. You have no shikari at your elbow nudging you, and whispering advice just as you are going to fire, starting off the flock by showing himself immediately after your first shot, and finally, when you have got all the heads you care for out of the flock, imploring you to shoot a worthless little brute for the coolies to eat. Call him up when you have finished, and let him cut the throats of the slain to make them lawful eating, low down the neck, so as not to spoil the skin for stuffing, and if he objects, tell him he may do without meat. One of the greatest mistakes that all shikaries make in stalking is trying to get too close to the game. It stands to reason, in a country infested by leopards or ounces, that if a beast catches sight of the top of one’s head within five and twenty yards, he will bolt at once, whereas at eighty yards distance he feels at all events safe from a sudden rush, and will stop to gaze.

After the end of June it is practically waste of time trying for ibex. There is grass everywhere, and to escape the gadflies and be out of the way of the flocks of sheep and goats that are driven up into many of the best nullahs in summer, the ibex retire to the highest peaks in the neighbourhood, and rarely descend to ground where there is any chance of getting near them.

XXXVIII.—THE IBEX OF PERSIA AND SINDH (Capra ægagrus)

Native names: ‘Pasang,’ male; ‘Boz,’ female; generally Boz Pasang in Persia (Blanford); Kayeek in Asia Minor (Danford)

This ibex extends from the Taurus mountains in Asia Minor, through the Caucasus range and Persia, to Afghanistan, Beluchistan and Sindh.

It is a smaller animal than the Himalayan ibex, and does not ascend to the same altitude, preferring, according to Mr. Danford, elevations of 2,000 to 5,000 ft., while 8,000 ft. is about the lowest limit of the Himalayan variety. In Beluchistan and Afghanistan these ibex and O. Blanfordi are found on the same ground, just as Capra Jerdoni and Ovis cycloceros are in the Suleiman range; and this peculiar trait of preferring hot low hills is, in the writer’s estimation, the great point of difference between Capra ægagrus, Capra Jerdoni and Ovis cycloceros on the one side, and Capra sibirica, Capra megaceros and Ovis Vignei on the other.

The general colour of the buck Capra ægagrus is brown with a dark line down the back, and a black beard, but the last is not so profuse as in Capra sibirica. The females are lighter in colour, and have small horns. The horns are quite different from those of any other species of ibex; instead of having a flat front and being thinner behind than in front, as most other ibex horns are, these horns have the edge in front, a scimitar-like ridge running up the front of the horn, wavy but unbroken for about one-third above the head, and then represented by knobs which spring up at some distance apart for about another third, when the ridge appears again, but rapidly dies away towards the point. The sides of the horn too are smooth, the outer side rounded and the inner flat, the knobs not running down the sides as in other ibex.

In Persia and Afghanistan these ibex are generally shot in drives. The members of the Afghan Boundary Commission had a great day with them.

In the Sinaitic Peninsula they are replaced by Capra sinaitica vel nubiana, which extends through Egypt. Few people looking at the hills that run down to Suez harbour would imagine that they hold ibex, but such is the case nevertheless. The horns of this type are more like Capra sibirica, being quite as long, but thinner and more curved.

Capra sibirica

Capra ægagrus

Capra sinaitica

The European ibex, Capra Ibex of the Tyrol, has also horns like Capra sibirica, and nearly as thick, but shorter. His beard, however, is only rudimentary.

The Spanish ibex, Capra pyrenaica, on the other hand, has a peculiar upward twist at the end of the horn that makes it look almost like a markhor. This type is described elsewhere.

‘WITH CARTRIDGES HANDY AND STEADY SHOOTING’

Measurements

Authority	Height at shoulder	Length, head and body	Tail	Weight as shot	Length of horns	Girth of horns	Remarks
Capra sibirica
	ins.	ins.	ins.	lbs.	ins.	ins.
Col. Kinloch	about 40	..	..	..	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
”	..	..	..	..	54	..	”
Major Ward	38	54	8	188	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	..	..	..	208	..	..	”
” (a female)	32	..	..	104	..	..	”
”	..	..	..	..	52	..	”
Mr. M. Kennard	..	..	..	..	51½	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. Blyth, ‘Proc. Zoo. Soc.,’ 1840	..	..	..	..	51¼	10½	”
Sir V. Brooke	..	..	..	..	51	9⅛	”
Major Ward	..	..	..	..	51	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	..	..	..	..	50	11	”
”	..	..	..	..	50	10	”
Capt. J. Brickley	..	..	..	..	50	9	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	..	..	49¾	10⅜	”
Mr. M. Kennard, 1887	..	..	..	..	49½	10⅛	”
Major Ward	..	..	..	..	49	11	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	..	48½	9⅝	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Major Ward	..	..	..	..	48	12	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	..	..	..	..	48	10	”
”	..	..	..	..	48	10	”
”	..	..	..	..	48	10	”
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	..	47⅞	9⅛	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. Rowland Ward	..	..	..	..	47½	10¼	”
Mr. C. Hagenback	..	..	..	..	47	11¾	”
Mr. M. Kennard	..	..	..	..	47	10½	”
Mr. Manners Smith	..	..	..	..	47	10	”
Major Greenaway	37½	..	..	..	..	..
Major FitzHerbert	31	50	4	..	..	..	(A female)
Sterndale, ‘Mammalia’	about 44	..	..	..	..	..
Average of good head	..	..	..	..	40	10
Capra ægagrus
Col. F. Marston	..	..	..	..	53	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	..	52⅜	7⅞	”
British Museum	..	..	..	..	48½	8½	Skull No. 652 Ost. Cat.
Mr. Danford	33½	65½	included	..	47½	9¾	Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’
Capt. Townley Parker	..	..	..	..	45¼	9½	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
British Museum	..	..	..	..	44½	8⅞	”
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	..	44½	8⅝	”
Mr. J. Carr Saunders	..	..	..	..	43½	9
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	..	43⅜	8⅝	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	..	..	43	9	”
British Museum	..	..	..	..	43	9	”
Capra Ibex (Tyrol)
British Museum (skull No. 650a Ost. Cat.), a doubtful specimen	..	..	..	..	43¾, 41¼	10½
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	..	..	31¾	9⅛	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Senckenberg Museum	..	..	..	..	30¼	9	(Cord, base to tip, 21¾ inches)
British Museum	..	..	..	..	27½	8¼
Senckenberg Museum	..	..	..	..	24	9	(Cord, base to tip, 16½ inches)
Capra sinaitica vel nubiana
British Museum	..	..	..	..	51¼	7¼	(Skull No. 651 Ost. Cat.)
”	..	..	..	..	46	8
Capt. Bartelott	..	..	..	..	42¼	9¼	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Capt. W. H. Besant	..	..	..	..	41¾	7⅝	”
Capra Wali
Senckenberg Museum			..	..	24	9¾	(Cord, base to tip, 17 inches)

Mr. Sclater gives two other varieties of ibex, Capra caucasica and Capra Wali. The Senckenberg Museum of Frankfort is believed to possess the only known specimens of this last type. Of it Dr. F. Richters, in charge of the Museum, says: ‘The horns of Capra Wali differ from those of Capra sibirica in the following points: the outer surface in Capra Wali is curved (smooth?), while in Capra sibirica it is corrugated. The under side of Capra Wali is sharper than in Capra sibirica. The inner side of Capra Wali has between every two knobs (on the top of the horn) five or six grooves, which correspond with a similar number of notches of equal depth on the under side. C. sibirica, on the other hand, has a fairly smooth inner surface, and on the under side has under every two knobs (on the top of the horn) a deep notch, and between every two deep notches a shallower one. The tip of C. sibirica is more curved than that of C. Wali. The horn of our specimen of wali has eight knobs on it, that of C. sibirica (horns 36¼ ins. in length, girth at base 9½ ins., cord from base to tip 22 ins.) 17 knobs.’ The specimen came from Abyssinia, and its photograph shows the peculiar knob at the base of the horn on the forehead, its absence of beard, and its small size in comparison to C. sibirica, which is photographed with it.

XXXIX. THER (Capra jemlaica)

Gurwhal, ‘Ther,’ female ‘Theri,’ ‘Tahr,’ or ‘Jhula,’ female ‘Tharni’; Chamba and Pangi, ‘Kart’; Cashmere, ‘Jagla’; Khistwar, ‘Kras’; Nepal, ‘Jharál’

Ther are found at high elevations, where the forest line begins to give way to the snow throughout the southern slopes of the Himalayas, from Cashmere to Bhutan. Its north-west limit appears to be where the Jhelum river separates the Kajnag from the Pir Punjal ranges; though fairly common in the latter, it is apparently unknown in the Kajnag, nor is it found in the ranges to the north of the Cashmere valley; from the Pir Punjal it extends south-eastwards through Kishtwar and Chamba, then leaving Lahoul and Spiti to the north on to the upper waters of the Jumna, Ganges, and Aleknanda rivers, and so by Nepal to Bhutan, being most plentiful perhaps in Chamba and Gurwhal.

A dream of ther shooting

An old buck ther is a fine beast in his winter coat; his head is long and lean, the face being nearly black; the ears are small; a long, light-coloured mane sweeps down from his neck, chest and shoulders, reaching below his knees and showing up well against his dark brown back and quarters, his long shaggy coat half hiding his short sturdy legs. The horns are his weak point, and the ground he frequents entails such a lot of climbing and hard work that one is always inclined to think, ‘If I must risk my neck, I would sooner do it after a 50-inch markhor than a 15-inch ther.’

Still, ther shooting is very enjoyable in the spring (in the autumn, when the beasts are in their summer coats, they are hardly better worth killing than bears at the same season), and a few days ther shooting, if it can be indulged in before proceeding after markhor or ibex, is the best possible tonic for one’s nerves. The ground—rocky slopes covered thinly with pines and bushes—always looks more dangerous than it really is. The rock is sound limestone, and does not give way under one’s foot; there is nearly always a friendly bush to hang to, and the very blades of grass are tough. The writer does not go quite so far as to confirm the statement of a merry sportsman—that he and two shikaris all hung on to one blade of grass while crossing a difficult bit; but it is wonderful how much weight that grass will support if only subjected to a steady strain.

There is also generally a variety of game to be shot from the same camp—gooral, kakur, black and brown bears, musk deer, markhor in the Pir Punjal, and burrel may often, according to the district, be combined with ther shooting; besides, there is always the 100 to 1 chance of a serow or leopard, and the writer even once came across a tiger within a walk of ther ground. It had killed a buffalo out of a herd close by, and actually walked through the camp one night, passing within a few feet of the tents.

Though ther are often found in large flocks, the big bucks are generally alone, and these solitary old males are particularly crafty and by no means easy beasts to come to terms with. Colonel Kinloch writes unkindly of the ther in respect of his high flavour; all wild goats smell, and whether it be markhor, ibex or ther, the stink of the last beast bagged always seems more appalling than any that one has experienced before, and is only surpassed by the next one. The ‘bouquet’ of ther and markhor, however, appears to fade after the head has been stuffed, but the scent of the ibex will cling to it still. The writer has some stuffed ibex heads that were obtained six years ago, and their aroma on damp days, though pleasing as a reminiscence of past sport, is hardly suited to the house.

Female ther are smaller than the males, have no mane, insignificant horns, and vary a good deal in colour, some being reddish-brown, others a yellowish-drab. They and the bucks in their summer coats have a conspicuous mark on the back, where the hair of what is the mane in the buck parts from the hair on the back. This is particularly noticeable when looking down on the beast from above.

XL. NEILGHERRY IBEX (Hemitragus hylocrius)

Native Names: ‘Warra-adu,’ ‘Warri-atu’; Tamil (Sterndale) ‘Kárd-ardoo’; Canarese (Sanderson)

This wild goat is found in the Neilgherry range, and most of the higher hills in the south of India. It is not found in Mysore nor in Ceylon.

The old buck is of a dark sepia colour, with a light, grizzled saddle mark, lower parts paler brown, legs and face dark, and a short stiff mane on the neck and withers; the young bucks and females being lighter in colour. The horns much resemble those of the ther, Hemitragus jemlaicus, except that they are more ringed and sheeplike, and do not taper so rapidly. There is much the same difference between them on a small scale as between the horns of Capra sibirica and Capra ægagrus, the Neilgherry goat taking after the former and the ther the latter. The two beasts are much about the same size, and have, taking into consideration the different types of forest, much the same habits. In Madras the Neilgherry ibex, being the sole representative of the goat family, has an amount of importance attached to his pursuit which his Himalayan cousin does not enjoy, being crushed by the superior attractions of his mighty relatives the ibex and markhor. They are to be sought for in the same way, watching from above the grassy slopes among the cliffs at an elevation of 5,000 or 6,000 ft., and require the same careful stalking.

XLI. GOORAL (Nemorhædus Goral)

Generally, ‘Gooral’ or ‘Ban bakri’; Chumba, ‘Pij’; Cashmere, ‘Nain,’ ‘Norn’

This is quite the most sporting of the minor beasts of the chase. It is pretty generally distributed along the whole of the lower slopes of the Himalayas from the Indus river to the Kachin hills in Burmah; horns of both gooral and serow were found by the Phunkan column in 1889. In Cashmere they are scarce, a few only being found in the Kajnag and Pir Punjal ranges, but from Kishtwar to the south-east they are pretty plentiful, especially in Chumba, Gurwhal, the Sewalik range, and the valleys of the Ganges, Jumna, and Tonse rivers. They seem indifferent to heat, and abound among the hot precipitous cliffs formed by the big rivers cutting their way through the hills, the Tonse seeming to suit their requirements admirably. Wherever a landslip has occurred, wherever there is a steep rocky slope covered with long grass and occasional bushes and pines, there gooral are sure to be found. Higher up the hills, up to about 8,000 ft. above the sea level, they are often seen on the short turf at the tops of the ridges or in the pine forests, but rocks they must have close to, and the more precipitous the cliff the more likely it is to hold them.

Wary as gooral are, they will often live close to villages, and do not mind the presence of flocks with their attendant shepherds, or hillmen cutting wood and grass near their haunts. They seem to trust to the steep broken ground they frequent for protection. Gooral, as a rule, are fairly easy animals to get a shot at, but they present by no means a large target, and are very tenacious of life; a wounded one will often tax the best nerves to follow. Gooral seem to become particularly attached to certain localities, and will stand a good deal of bullying and firing at before they leave the ground for good, and as they are to be found within easy reach from many of the hill-stations, they afford pretty shooting to sportsmen who are debarred from hunting better game. Few men go out of their way to hunt gooral, but it is very good fun all the same, and first-class practice both in climbing and shooting.

Buck gooral are generally found alone or with one other companion; if four or five are seen together, they are almost invariably does and young ones. It is nearly impossible to distinguish the sexes at any distance, one rarely gets a fair view of the beast to begin with; the horns are well nigh invisible, except against the skyline, and even if seen are hardly any guide, as both sexes carry them, the buck’s horns being only longer and thicker; and it requires the experience of a Tyrolese keeper, accustomed to chamois, to judge the sex from the shape of a beast half hidden in long grass or bushes. Native shikaris certainly never know.

Walking along a ridge or a hillside you hear a sharp hiss: up jumps a brown beast some fifty yards off, gallops twenty yards, and stands for a second to gaze; you fire, and it rolls down the hill; you climb down congratulating yourself—a clean kill!—a single beast—surely a real good head this time—but when you reach it, too often it is another luckless nanny. In chamois the buck is more heavily built than the doe, is darker in colour, and has a ruff of long black-brown hair along the back, but it takes years of practice to tell an old doe from a buck, especially in winter.

The general colour of gooral is a rich brownish-yellow tipped with sepia, and there is a conspicuous white patch on the throat which is more recognisable in the buck than in the doe, and is really, if it can be seen, the best guide in distinguishing the sexes. General Macintyre mentions an albino gooral.

Though gooral seem fond of heat, they do not like being out in the sun, and this fact is a decided convenience to the sportsmen, the shady side of the hill being both pleasanter and more profitable to work over.

Gooral may occasionally be driven, but far the pleasantest and most sportsmanlike way of hunting them is to walk slowly along the top of a ridge, carefully examining every ravine and patch of likely ground. Where gooral are at all plentiful it is almost impossible to take too much pains. The beasts often lie down under overhanging boulders and turn up suddenly in the most unexpected fashion on ground where you thought you had examined every inch, and as surely as you become careless so surely will you hear a hiss and see a beast dash down the hill at whom you might have got an easy shot had you not relaxed your attention.

The comparative measurements of European chamois are given by Colonel Howard as follows:

Good bucks weigh from 45 lbs. to 60 lbs. broken up. Extraordinary ones reach 70 lbs. and over.

Length of horn	Perpendicular measurement	Girth	Splay
ins.	ins.	ins.	ins.
11¼	7¾	3½	6½
10⅜	..	3½	4

These two heads are exceptionally fine; the two next heads are good, but not extraordinary.

Length of horn	Perpendicular measurement	Girth	Splay
ins.	ins.	ins.	ins.
9¼	..	3¼	6¼
9¼	6½	3½	4

There are two more varieties of gooral in the British Museum: the long-tailed gooral from China, which is about the same size as an Indian gooral, but rather more yellow in colour. It has a tail of long brown hair reaching to its hocks, that of the one in the British Museum measuring 17 ins. to the tips of the hair. The Japanese gooral is a delightful beast, and exactly what one would expect from such a quaint country. Its coat is like that of a Langour monkey, long, soft, grey hair, tipped with brown; it has a white ruff on its throat and cheeks, a brown face, and rather rounded brown ears—altogether it looks like a goat-monkey. The horns are the same shape as those of the Indian gooral.

XLII. SEROW (Nemorhædus bubalinus)

Gurwhal, ‘Serow’; Sutlej Valley, ‘Imu’; Cashmere, ‘Ramoo,’ ‘Halj,’ ‘Salabhir’; Chamba, ‘Goa,’ ‘Jhangal’

The serow is a heavily built, awkward looking animal, intensely ugly, suggesting a cross between a donkey and a cow, with a wild-looking bristly black mane, large coarse ears, horns like those of a gooral, only bigger; its general colour is black on the back and head, the muzzle being dirty white; the sides, forearms and thighs are of bright red clay colour, the under parts and legs being white; when seen first, it looks all red and black, and its wild uncanny appearance accords well with the gloomy tangled precipitous ravines it frequents.

It is found thinly scattered along the whole of the southern slopes of the Himalayas, from Cashmere down past Sikkim, to the Burmo-Chinese frontier, but apparently does not cross the snow-line, probably on account of absence of forest on the northern side. Precipitous rocks and their accompanying caves it likes, but forest it must have, and the thicker and more tangled the better. A gloomy damp ravine below a waterfall, the sides mere walls of rock and the bed choked with rank vegetation, is the place where its tracks are oftenest found. The beast itself is rarely seen. It appears to live generally alone; a female with a three-quarter-grown young one may be found together, but rarely two full-grown beasts. Major Greenaway saw three serow in one day, in the Sindh Valley in 1871, two of them together, and one alone, and got shots at all of them, but only bagged one. But this was exceptional luck. Most men who have shot for some years in the hills, have seen one or two serow, but rarely more, and getting a shot at one is generally looked upon as a lucky fluke. Besides being scarce, serow are uncommonly wary, and are said by natives to travel for miles if disturbed.

The serow gallops down hill

Colonel Kinloch is one of the very few people who have laid themselves out to hunt serow, and his experiences are scarcely encouraging, though Ward says that in the winter months serow can be found with comparative ease in the Sindh Valley, in Cashmere. The serow seems, like sambur, to be nocturnal in its habits, and its discordant scream is often to be heard after dark in Gurwhal, where it is comparatively plentiful.

The serow’s chief accomplishment is the way that he can gallop down a steep hill, and as he invariably takes that course when disturbed, he can be easily driven, provided the ground is well known. All writers agree that a wounded one will charge. Kinloch mentions having heard of an unwounded male charging when its mate was shot, and Ward gives a graphic account of an adventure he had with one. Mr. O. Shaw shot a serow with a white mane in Cashmere. There are two more varieties of this capricorn described in Sterndale’s ‘Natural History of India.’ The first is the Arakanese capricorn, found in Arakan, Pegu, the Malayan Peninsula, and Sumatra.

This is a brown beast with a yellow bay throat, black forelegs, and bay hind ones. The description is rather vague, and Blyth’s note—‘This species varies much in colour from red to black, and the black sometimes with a white nape, or the hairs of the nape may be white at the base only’—does not explain matters very clearly to an unscientific reader. The second variety is the Thibetan capricorn, discovered by Abbé David, in Eastern Thibet.

This differs from the Indian serow by the uniform blackish brown of the upper parts, tending to ferruginous on the thighs, and the red colour in place of the grey on the lower parts of the legs.

XLIII. TAKIN (Budorcas taxicolor)

Native name: ‘Takin,’ ‘Takhon’

This curious animal, which is found just outside British limits in the Mishmi and Akha hills, north of Assam, and in Eastern Thibet, is a kind of large serow; but its horns, instead of being sharp upright spikes like those of the serow and gooral, are more of the bovine type, being rounded, smooth, and with the distinctive wrinkles and longitudinal marks of genus Nemorhædus faintly defined. Their peculiar twist is best explained by the accompanying sketch.

An article in Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia of India,’ signed ‘J. C.,’ thus describes the animal:

The takin is a large, heavily built ruminant, about 3 ft. 6 ins. high at the shoulder, and 6 ft. in total length. The external peculiarities of the animal are: first, peculiar angularly curved horns in both sexes; second, the enormously arched chevron; third, the very great development of the spurious hoofs, which are obtusely conical, and about 1½ in. in length in a small specimen.

Old bulls appear to become of an uniform brownish black at times, but the colour doubtless depends on the season, as each hair has the basal two-thirds yellow, and its apical third black, and the young its hair brown with a dark tint.

The animal would appear to range from about 8,000 ft. to the Alpine region, which is stated to be its habitat.

Budorcas taxicolor

As this animal has been found by the Abbé David in Chinese Thibet, future explorations to the north of Burmah should furnish skeletons and details about its habits for the advancement of science.

There are two skulls in the British Museum in which the prominent chevron is particularly noticeable; and there are also several stuffed specimens.

XLIV. THIBETAN ANTELOPE (Pantholops Hodgsonii—Sterndale, Kinloch); (Kemas Hodgsonii—Ward)

Cashmeree shikaris know it as ‘Heran.’ The Ladak name is ‘Chiru,’ or ‘Choos’

This rather curious antelope is pretty plentiful in the Changchmeno Valley, the only easily accessible place for European sportsmen where it is found. A few are said to have been shot in the neighbourhood of the Mansarovárá Lake, near the North-Western frontier of Nepal, and they are also to be met with all over the lofty plateau which has to be crossed on the way to Yarkand. It appears, however, never to have been found in the district beyond the Niti Pass as far as Europeans have been able to penetrate, nor did Colonel Kinloch apparently meet with it when he crossed the frontier in the direction of Gártope.

Measurements

Authority	Height at shoulder	Total length	Weight as shot	Length of horn	Girth at base	Sex	Remarks
Capra Jemlaica
	ins.	ins.	lbs.	ins.	ins.
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	14⅛	8⅞	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Major Ward	..	..	200	14	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Mr. Gwynne Griffiths	..	..	..	13⅞	9	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
The Writer, 1884	..	..	..	13⅞	..	..
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	13¾	9	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	13¾	8⅜	..	”
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	13⅝	8	..	”
British Museum	..	..	..	13½	8⅞	..	”
Mr. Rowland Ward	..	..	..	13½	8½	..	”
”	..	..	about 200	..	..	..	”
Hon. W. Rothschild	..	..	..	13⅜	9⅛	..	”
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	13¼	9½	..	”
Sir V. Brooke	..	..	..	13¼	8⅞	..	”
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	..	13¼	8¼	..	”
Mr. J. Carr Saunders	..	..	..	13⅛	8⅞	..	”
Capt. H. Brooke	..	..	..	13	..	..
Major Greenaway	41	52	..	12½	..	..
”	36½	..	..	..	..	..
Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’	36 to 40	about 54	..	12 to 14	..	..
Col. Kinloch	..	..	..	about 15	10 to 11	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Average good head	..	..	..	12	9	..
Hemitragus hylocrius
Gen. McMaster	..	..	..	17	9¾	..	Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	16¾	8⅞	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. St. George Littledale	..	..	..	16½	..	..	”
Gen. McMaster	..	..	..	16	..	..	Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	..	15½	8⅝	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. M. Kennard	..	..	..	15¾	8¾	..	”
Mr. St. George Littledale, 1875	..	..	..	15¾	8¼	..	”
Mr. M. Kennard	..	..	..	15⅛	8⅝	..	”
Mr. St. George Littledale, 1871	..	..	..	15⅛	8⅝	..	”
Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’	41 to 42	..	..	..	..	..
Average of good head	..	..	..	12	8	..
Nemorhædus Goral
Major Ward	28	..	58	8½	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	28	..	63	8	..	..	”
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	7⅝	3¾	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Major Ward	28	..	59	7½	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	26	..	..	7½	..	..	”
Capt. J. A. Orr Ewing	..	..	..	7	3¾	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. J. M. Nicolls	..	..	..	7	3½	..	”
Col. Kinloch	about 26	..	..	up to 8	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’	28 to 30	about 48	..	6 to 9	..	..
Major Greenaway	26½	..	..	..	..	Female
Average good head	..	..	..	6	..	..
Nemorhædus bubalinus
Major Ward	37	..	190	12	..	Male	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Hon. C. Ellis	..	..	..	10½	5⅜	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Capt. H. Brooke	..	..	..	10	5½	Male
Major Ward	38	..	190	10	..	”	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	33	..	120	10	..	Female	”
Sir V. Brooke	..	..	..	9⅞	5⅝	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. R. Lydekker, British Museum	..	..	..	9¾	5⅛	..	”
Major Greenaway	..	..	..	9½	..	Male
”	..	..	..	7⅛	..	Female
Major FitzHerbert	42	71	..	9¼	5½	Male
The Writer	40	..	..	8	5	Female
Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’	about 36	60 to 66	about 200	9 to 14	..	..
Arakanese Capricorn
British Museum, sex unknown, not full grown (the horns are of the ordinary serow type)	..	..	..	8¼	5½	..

---

Authority	Height at shoulder	Total length	Weight as shot	Length of horn	Girth at base	Span at tips	Remarks
Budorcas taxicolor
	ins.	ins.	lbs.	ins.	ins.	ins.
British Museum	..	..	..	22⅜	10⅝	14¾	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	20⅞	11⅜	11⅞	”
Mr A. O. Hume	..	..	..	20¾	11⅞	12½	”
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	20¾	9⅝	13⅜	”
Mr. B. H. Hodgson, British Museum	..	..	..	20½	10⅞	12⅜	”
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	..	19⅜	11	15	”
British Museum	..	..	..	18	10¼	8	”
”	..	..	..	16⅛	8¾	10¾	”
Mr. B. H. Hodgson, British Museum	..	..	..	15¼	9⅜	5¾	”
Lieut.-Col. Graham	..	..	..	14⅜	8¾	8⅞	”

The bucks vary a good deal in colour; some of them are a beautiful golden red, some a light fawn, and others a dirty yellowish white. The colour of the hair seems always to fade after the skin is removed. As a rule the skins are useless in the summer as the antelope are changing their coats; the legs and face are dark brown, and the muzzle, instead of being neat and deer-like, is broad and puffy. The horns are peculiar, having a considerable bend forward at the tips, as if they were pliable, and the buck was standing with his back to a gale of wind.

They have two greatly developed inguinal glands, the tubes of which run right up into the body, and the Tartars are said to believe that the antelope inflate these with air at will, to enable them to gallop faster. A curious point about this antelope is that though he can gallop, and very fast, he generally seems to prefer moving at a sharp trot.

As they are wary and require careful stalking, and as they often lie up for the day in holes, which they have a curious habit of scratching for themselves on the hillsides just deep enough to conceal the whole of their bodies and necks when lying down, leaving the eyes just peeping over the top, the best time to hunt them is when they are feeding in the morning and evening. They are rather soft animals, and succumb to wounds that most deer would travel miles with; the writer once broke the foreleg of a buck who after going about half a mile lay down with his nose on the ground, and let himself be caught. There was a pretty free fight for a bit when he was laid hold of, his sharp horns necessitating a certain amount of caution; a judicious wrench towards his wounded side, however, at length upset him, and a knife-thrust finished him. A Tartar shikari, who was standing by, absolutely refused to lend any assistance during the struggle, contenting himself with applauding the combatants and seeing fair play. The does are smaller than the bucks, are of a light brown colour, and have no horns.

Unlike other antelope, the bucks separate from the does in the summer, and walk about in herds together. They are much worried by the grubs of some fly, which seems to annoy them chiefly when lying down during the heat of the day, for it is a common thing to see one of a herd get up, go for a constitutional gallop—they always gallop then—return to the herd and lie down again with the others. They do not seem to be troubled so much when moving about feeding. The venison in July is excellent.

XLV. THE SAIGA ANTELOPE (Saiga tartarica)

This extraordinary animal, which hails from Central Asia, is said to be a relative of the Thibetan antelope, on account of the peculiar formation of the nose. In the stuffed specimens in the British Museum there is little or no resemblance between the two; the Thibetan antelope having there, as in its natural state, a broad puffy muzzle, while the saiga antelope has, at all events in the Museum, in addition to a very high chevron, an absurd-looking elongated snout like a tapir, projecting far beyond its lower lip. The hair is thick and long, particularly on the cheeks, where it almost resembles a wild boar. The ears are small and rounded in shape, utterly unlike any deer’s ears. The general colour is almost white (probably a very pale yellow in nature), and there is a dark stripe down the quarters and tail. The horns are annulated and of a very pale colour, the stuffed specimen having twelve rings; and though of the gazelle type, with a backward sweep, rising up again at the tips, they have also two curious outward bends, one near the base of the horn, and another near the tip, though the tips eventually incline inwards. A skeleton in the Museum measured 58 ins. in length along the spinal cord, and stood 31¾ ins. at the shoulder. The stuffed specimen stands 30 ins. at the shoulder. Three pairs of horns measured 13¾ ins., 13½ ins. and 13 ins.

Saiga tartarica

Sterndale remarks that the inflated nostrils ‘are so much lengthened as to necessitate the animal’s walking backwards when it feeds.’ The fortunate sportsman who comes across this rare variety should therefore remember to post himself astern of a herd should he wish it to feed up to him—though he may possibly find that nature has provided the animal with means of twitching its nose out of the way to obviate so uncomfortable a method of grazing.

Gazella gutturosa

This is another little known variety. It is found in Mongolia, and is the one Ward refers to as the ‘hwang yang, or yellow goat.’ There is a stuffed specimen in the British Museum, which stands 31 ins. at the shoulder, is of a pale yellowish white, with coarse hairs, and has horns 10½ ins. in length, of the regular gazelle type in shape and ribbing, much resembling those of the Gazella picticaudata.

Gazella subgutturosa

is a much smaller beast than the last. It is found in Persia,[24] and extends to Yarkand, where a specimen was shot by Major Biddulph when with the Yarkand Mission, between Maral Bashi and Kashgar. It is called by the natives ‘djêrân,’ or ‘jairan.’ Its general colour is pale red, with dark facial marks, a dark band along the side where the white of the belly joins the red of the back, and above it a curious pale streak. The buck has long, annulated, lyrate horns, with the tips inclining inwards. It measures 27½ ins. in height, and the horns of a specimen quoted in the ‘Scientific Results, Second Yarkand Mission,’ measured 14 ins. in length by 5 ins. in girth. There is a coloured plate of one in the same publication.

Major Cumberland, in his journal published by ‘Land and Water,’ mentions hawking these gazelles with trained eagles. He says that the doe is not much bigger than Gazella Bennetti, with short stumpy horns.

XLVI. THE THIBETAN GAZELLE (Gazella picticaudata, Procapra picticaudata—Ward)

Thibetan ‘Goa’

This lovely little animal is of a creamy fawn colour in its winter coat. It has a white anal disc of longish hair, and a black tail about four inches long, which, like the Indian gazelle, it keeps perpetually wagging. The summer coat is slaty grey. The horns are like those of the Indian gazelle, but are longer, of finer grain, and have a far bolder sweep backwards before turning up at the tips. The female has no horns. It frequents the high plateaux along the Chinese frontier, in Eastern Ladak, in the neighbourhood of the Tsomoriri Lake, but apparently does not extend north of the Indus, as far as Ladak is concerned, its limits in Chinese Thibet being at present unknown.

Measurements

Authority	Height at shoulder	Total length	Weight as shot	Length of horns	Girth at base	Span tip to tip	Remarks
Pantholops Hodgsonii
	ins.	ins.	lbs.	ins.	ins.	ins.
Colonel Kinloch quotes a head	..	..	..	28½	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	27⅞	5⅞	13⅛	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Sir R. Harvey, Bart.	..	..	..	27⅞	5½	11¼	”
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	27⅛	5½	15⅛	”
Major Ward	36	..	85	26½	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Hon. C. Ellis	..	..	..	26⅜	5⅞	13⅝	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
The Writer	..	..	..	26	..	..
Capt. G. Campbell	..	..	..	25½	5½	12½	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	25⅜	5⅜	12½	”
”	..	..	..	25¼	5¾	12¾	”
Major Ward	37	..	85	24	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
”	37	..	90	24	..	..	”
The Writer	35	..	..	20½	..	..	”
Major Ward puts the average length of a full-grown buck’s horns at 22 ins., which seems about right.
Saiga tartarica
Hon. W. Rothschild	..	..	..	14⅜	5¼	3½	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	..	13¾	5	..	”
Sir V. Brooke	..	..	..	13¾	4⅜	3½	”
British Museum	..	..	..	13¾	..	..
”	..	..	..	13½	..	..
Hon. W. Rothschild	..	..	..	13⅛	5⅜	4⅜	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
British Museum	..	..	..	13	..	..
Gazella gutturosa
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	..	13⅛	4⅝	6¼	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. St. George Littledale	..	..	..	12¾	4⅜	3⅜	”
”	..	..	..	12¼	4⅜	4¾	”
Mr. R. Beech	..	..	..	11½	4⅞	3	”
Mr. Rowland Ward	about 30	..	..	..	..	..	”
Gazella subgutturosa
Scientific Results, Second Yarkand Mission	27½	..	..	14	5	..
Mr. Rowland Ward	about 26	..	..	..	..	..	‘Horn Measurements’
Dr. O. Finsch, British Museum	..	..	..	13¾	4½	6	”
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	13⅜	4¾	5½	”
”	..	..	..	13	4½	5	”
”	..	..	..	12¾	4¾	4⅜	”
”	..	..	..	12⅝	4¾	5¼	”
”	..	..	..	11¾	5	5⅛	”
Gazella picticaudata
Major Greenaway	..	..	37 cleaned	13½	..	..
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	13½	3⅝	5¼	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. H. C. V. Hunter	..	..	..	13⅛	4	3⅝	”
”	..	..	..	13	3¾	3½	”
Colonel Kinloch	about 24	..	..	13	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Major Ward	..	..	..	13	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Major Greenaway	23½	41	47	13	..	..
” (a doe)	23	38½	40	..	..	..
”	..	..	..	13	..	..
Captain K. Mackenzie	..	..	..	13	..	..
Average of good head	..	..	..	13	..	..

Goa do not appear to lie down much in the middle of the day, and in May and June, at all events, are constantly on the move. They appear to resort to particular spots for dropping their dung, and little heaps of it may be noticed wherever goa are at all plentiful.

As they are generally found on the grass flats that fringe the streams, or on some almost level plateau, stalking them is by no means easy, though they are not generally very shy, will occasionally allow considerable liberties to be taken in approaching them, and will stop to look after a fallen companion. The Tartars say that they can be stalked down wind, but they say this also of the Thibetan antelope, and Major Ward’s advice on this point is sound: ‘Believe it, reader, if you like, but do not try it often.’

XLVII. INDIAN ANTELOPE (Antilope Bezoartica)

Generally ‘Heran,’ or ‘Mirug,’ from the Sanscrit ‘Mirga’

This is the well-known black buck, which is found all over India at intervals from the extreme south to as far north as the Jhelum, following the southern bank of that river till (joined by the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej) it flows into the Indus, which then becomes the black buck’s northern boundary. Essentially a plains-loving animal, it avoids hills and heavy forest, but is often found in the long grass which covers the islands and banks of many of the large rivers. Though considerable tracts of apparently suitable country do not seem to hold a single herd, special districts where antelope are always to be found seem to crop up unexpectedly all over India. In the North-West Provinces, and along the borders of the Bikanir Desert between Rajpootana and the Punjab, it appears to be more generally plentiful than in the rest of India, and the horns in these districts grow longer. Sanderson says, in ‘Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India,’ that an 18-in. horn is a decided rarity in Mysore, whilst in the Bikanir Desert they are frequently obtained 24 ins., and occasionally 27 ins. or more, in length.

A black buck in his best coat is a very handsome animal, but is too well known to require description.

The buck usually changes his coat after the rutting season, which is in the spring, the season varying slightly according to locality. During the hot months he is generally more or less brown, regaining the black coat after the rainy season. Many full-grown bucks with good heads do not seem to turn black at all, but the master buck of a herd is almost invariably black at the proper season.

Tame decoys

Major FitzHerbert (a very careful observer of the habits of wild animals) is of opinion that it is usually the master buck of the herd who turns brown in the hot weather; he is then used up, and often leaves the herd to the possession of a younger buck, who has remained black.

The herds, though more frequently consisting of ten or a dozen animals, are occasionally of immense size—indeed thousands are mentioned by some authorities. Antelope in herds are, as a rule, fairly easy to get within shot of; but a solitary old black buck takes precious good care of himself, and as there is rarely cover enough to stalk him without being seen, these wary old gentlemen generally escape. The natives have many methods of hunting antelope. Pursuing them with trained chitas has been so often described that any detailed account of it is unnecessary. It is interesting to see once, the chita’s speed being so amazing, but considered as sport it is poor fun. Black buck are occasionally snared by sending tame bucks among them with nooses attached to their horns. The wild buck attacks the intruder, and gets caught by the horn. This plan is also adopted for snaring ravine deer, but not often, as the gazelle is said to be harder to train than the black buck. The commonest way of snaring antelope is by covering about an acre of ground thickly with nooses and driving a herd over it. Trained bullocks are often used by native shikaris to enable them to get within the close range they love for a shot; and the writer has seen the following curious method practised in Central India. A trained buck and doe are taken out, each having a light cord about ten yards long attached to it, and the pair are led by an attendant, a light screen about three feet square made of grass and leaves with a small hole in the centre being carried by the shikari, and the whole party moves under cover of a third man on horseback to within about three hundred yards of a herd of antelope. The screen is then planted on a spot commanding a good view; the men on foot crouch behind it, and the horseman rides slowly off to a flank. The tame deer are then let out to the full extent of their lines on one side of the screen, and begin playing round one another. The master buck of the herd, seeing an impertinent intruder on his ground, trots out at once to do battle for the doe, but the screen puzzles him, so before coming close he generally circles round to try and see behind it. As he moves the screen is shifted round, the men scrambling round on hands and knees behind it, and if there are two Englishmen bursting with suppressed laughter in addition to the two natives, all scuffling round as the screen moves and trying to keep their legs out of sight, the business is most comical.

Directly the wild buck stops, the screen and the men behind it must remain motionless. Having failed to discover what is behind the screen, the buck, though he is still suspicious, probably because he caught sight of a clumsy English leg, feels that he must try to capture that enticing doe, but decides on having a look from the other side of the screen first, so back he gallops to the other flank, and the scrambling process is repeated. Gradually he comes within range, the rifle is poked through the hole in the screen and he gets his quietus; after this the tame deer are given a handful of corn, and the party sets out to look for another herd. The tame buck employed in this manœuvre should be a brown one, as if an old powerful-looking black one is used the wild buck will often decline the contest.

In some districts the antelope are so wild that sportsmen have to approach them under cover of bullock-carts, and occasionally dress up as natives to get within range. The antelope are accustomed to see carts and natives, and will generally allow them to pass within about a hundred and fifty yards, while the sight of a European will start them off at once; but in most places in Central and Northern India these accessories are not needed. The pleasantest way of shooting is to ride a quiet horse, which will do for stalking if the antelope are wild or for riding down a wounded buck, taking a few coolies with you to carry game, luncheon, guns and cartridges.

A shot-gun enables one to vary the bag pleasantly with small game, without interfering with the chance of getting antelope. If the sportsman is fond of coursing, greyhounds may be taken, the Rampore breed suiting the country best; but after many trials the writer has become unwillingly convinced that dogs do more harm than good. If there are any crops about they soon get unsighted, get on to fresh deer, and disturb the whole country.

On the other hand, if the sportsman has dogs he can often enjoy a course after a fox or a hare to vary the entertainment, and a good course with a wounded buck is a very pretty sight. The usual proceeding is as follows: The sportsman rides till a herd is sighted; he approaches them as far as he thinks safe, probably within about six hundred yards; he then dismounts, and if he is going to use his horse for stalking, goes on with the horse and groom, leaving the coolies and dogs behind, with orders to follow him slowly, keeping as far back as possible without losing sight of him. If the antelope are feeding or moving slowly, the sportsman directs his course so as to cross their path about a hundred yards ahead of them. If the creatures are lying down or stationary, he must try to pass within a hundred yards of the flank which is to the leeward of the herd, walking on the far side of his horse, which is led by the groom on the same side. If he has no horse with him, he should hold his rifle so that the sun does not shine on the barrels. If two sportsmen are working together (a most killing plan with crafty men who play into one another’s hands), they should each take a flank and go rather wider than they would if hunting single-handed, so as to keep the herd between them. As long as that can be managed one or other of the guns is sure to get a chance at the best buck. The sportsman should show himself to the herd a long way off, and walk slowly, without any attempt at concealment; he must remember never to walk straight at them, but always as if he were going to pass them at about a hundred yards; if he finds he is lying too far out of his course, he should edge quietly towards them without turning, and he should never stop until he means to fire. He should never look direct at the herd; quiet side glances will give him all the information he requires.

When he has approached to within two hundred yards, if the herd is lying down some of the does will get up; but the sportsman can go on safely till the buck he wants begins to stir. The old fellow will rise leisurely, stretch himself, and then turn to gaze. This is the time for the shot, and if it can be taken without sitting down or kneeling it is far more likely to be an easy one. An excellent rest[25] for firing standing can be made with a light bamboo having an iron crutch covered with leather on the top to hold the rifle barrels. The crutch should be the exact height of the top of the sportsman’s shoulder, and is held, when firing, with the left hand at arm’s length. The bottom of the stick should be shod, to prevent it wearing away when used as a walking-stick. The advantages of using this rest are particularly noticeable when shooting among low bushes, which so often interfere with a shot when sitting or kneeling.

Frequently, just before the sportsman can get a fair chance at the buck he wants, the herd begins to move off; two or three does commence bucking high in the air, and to a novice it would appear that the whole herd are on the point of galloping away. This, however, by no means follows. The master buck often takes very little notice of their pranks, and follows slowly after them, in which case the does calm down, and though still continuing to move, will lead on slowly. The sportsman should follow them quietly, still keeping on their flanks, and heading so as to cut them off, if possible; sooner or later he will get a chance if he sticks to them quietly, though if he has followed them for some distance he will probably only get a running shot. Each herd has its own district as a rule, and sooner than be forced far over its boundary, it will turn and gallop back past the sportsman, often within fifty yards. This is even more noticeable with ravine deer, whose herd districts appear to be smaller than those of antelope, and who generally require a lot of following up and bullying before they give a chance. A good buck with a herd of either antelope or of ravine deer need never be given up as hopeless as long as it can be followed. In following a wounded buck the main point is just to keep it in sight without pressing it until it lies down, when it should be left for about half an hour before being restalked. If it is intended to ride, or course the buck, the attendants should be signalled up at once, as the half-hour’s rest will spoil the run, but the sportsman should be careful that the dogs are not slipped till the buck is well clear of the herd. The best way is for the sportsman to have the dogs brought up to him, then ride ahead, the slipper running after him with the dogs in leash till the buck begins to gallop; then have the dogs slipped and ride the buck, halloaing on the dogs till they are fairly laid on. If he has no dogs he will be able to get within three hundred yards of the buck before the latter really starts, and then he must send him along; after about half a mile he will find that he can get within twenty yards, but no nearer. A few hundred yards farther the buck will begin to falter and then suddenly throw himself down, and the sportsman can either spear him or dismount and knife him—the buck has run himself out. With Express rifles, unless a buck is hit in the leg, he will give no run at all; with a body wound he can’t gallop any distance, though he may give trouble if pursued on foot. The bucking bounds which antelope make are very peculiar (no wounded animal ever bucks). The distance covered may be only a few feet, the animal jumping apparently to get a good view, but when the deer are galloping, the distance covered in a bound, apparently made without effort, is extraordinary. Major FitzHerbert paced three successive bounds of a doe on softish sand; two measured eight yards and the third seven yards.

A buck slightly wounded in the leg will occasionally give a grand run. In 1875 Major FitzHerbert shot a buck through the hock without breaking the bone. Mounted on a fast Arab, he rode this buck for a mile and a half without being able to get up to him, as the buck led over a succession of gram fields where he was able to keep along the narrow headlands while the horse had to plough through the clods. Finding that he was, if anything, losing ground, the rider pulled up, and the buck stopped and lay down in a patch of grass. The attendants then came up with a couple of deerhounds, which were slipped at the buck with a good start, but could not run into him till he had gone another mile and a quarter, and only then caught the buck when he dislocated his wounded hock.

In 1876 the same sportsman had another brilliant gallop on the same horse after a buck wounded in the fleshy part of the thigh. A brace of dogs were slipped, but got away on to other deer early in the run, and the buck was ridden till he dropped and was despatched with a knife. This run was measured about five miles on the map from point to point, and must have been seven or eight miles as the buck went. Cases have been reported of unwounded black buck being run down by dogs in the Bombay Presidency, but in Northern India, though the writer knows of two instances of unwounded does being successfully coursed (one of these at all events was not in young, as it was examined by a medical officer to decide a bet), the bucks could always gallop away from the dogs.

The biggest bag of black buck the writer knows of was sixty-four bucks in 1883, by two guns in five days and a half. Of these, ten bucks, whose horns were all over 22 in. in length, were shot by one of the sportsmen in a morning’s work. The biggest mixed bag by one gun in a day was two nylghai, five ravine deer, and three black buck in 1875.

Black buck in their wild state are very pugnacious, and when two bucks are fighting they may often be approached without difficulty. I once walked up to within eighty yards of two who were desperately hard at it; sat down and watched the fight till they stood with their horns locked, and then shot the blacker buck of the pair through the lungs. He threw up his head and bolted, pursued by his antagonist, a brown buck with good horns, who seemed to have had rather the best of the battle while it lasted. They ran about one hundred yards, the brown buck driving and horning the other till the latter dropped dead; then, after making two or three attacks on the prostrate body, the brown buck began to swagger round it, head and tail in the air, as proud as could be. By this time I had again got well within range, and as the brown buck now apparently saw me for the first time (not having taking any notice of the shot), I dropped him with another bullet so that he fell over the carcase of his late rival.

Writing of the height that antelope can jump, Williamson mentions a black buck leading a herd over a net which was propped up on poles 13 ft. long, and which must have been at least 11 ft. high.

XLVIII. THE NYLGHAO (Portax pictus)

Native names: ‘Nilghao,’ ‘Lilghao’; in the Punjab, ‘Roz’

This animal is found pretty nearly all over the plains of India. Jerdon says it is not known in the extreme south of India, but Sanderson mentions it as occurring in the Madras Presidency on the borders of Mysore. According to my own experience, it is most plentiful in Central India, though it is common enough in the North-West Provinces.

An old male, usually called a blue bull, is a large beast with a lean head, surmounted by short cow-like horns, but with a curious rib along the base of the horn in front; the neck is long and carried high; the withers are high, and give him a horse-like appearance, but he falls away towards the hind-quarters; the tail is like a cow’s, with a tuft at the end, but only reaches to the hocks. His general colour is a dark iron grey; the chin, lips, and inside of the ears are white; the ears are rather large and cow-like; there is a white spot on each cheek, a large white patch on the throat, below which hangs a tuft of long black hair; the chest and stomach are white, there are white rings on the fetlocks, and he has a thin upright black mane.

The female is fawn-coloured, and is without horns.

Scrub jungle, composed of ‘babul’ trees, ‘dhak’ and ‘beyr’ bushes, is the ground on which to look for nylghai, and if there is a patch of sugar cane adjoining such a jungle, it is an almost certain find. The natives often enclose these patches of cane with grass fences nearly six feet high, but nylghai will always jump them.

As a rule, natives object more or less strongly to nylghai being shot, regarding them as cattle; and as they afford poor sport with the rifle, most men spare them after having obtained a few specimens, especially if the ground is not rideable; but where they can be ridden it is quite another matter. A wounded bull will give a grand run, and even an unwounded one can be ridden down if well pressed at first. This is rather a difficult matter for a single horseman, but parties of three or four have frequently done it. Kinloch mentions an instance of its having been done single-handed, and gives some stirring accounts of his own adventures after nylghai. Cows, he says, it is almost impossible to catch, the only chance being with heavy old bulls.

Blue bulls have frequently been tamed and trained to carry loads. Sterndale mentions one he used to ride, but they are as a rule dangerous in captivity. The writer owned one who would let him sit on his back when lying down, but he would always charge any pony that came near him, dropping suddenly on his knees to use his horns. He used to break loose, and hunt the native gardeners up trees, whilst he enjoyed the produce. As the bull would not consent to be led, he had to be left behind when the writer’s battalion left the station, and his last exploit was to hunt the portly native landlord of the house round and round the premises when he came to look at his property.

The hide is very thick, especially on the shoulders, and is much prized by the boatmen on all the rivers for making up into the inflated skins they use.

Sterndale remarks: ‘He sometimes even devours such quantities of the intensely acrid berries of the aoula (Phyllanthus emblica) that his flesh becomes saturated with the bitter elements of the fruit. This is most noticeable in soup, less so in a steak, which is at times not bad.’

The writer has never had the luck to taste any part of a blue bull that was worth eating except the tongue.

XLIX. INDIAN GAZELLE (Gazella Bennetti)

Commonly called Ravine Deer; native name generally ‘Chikara’

The gazelle is found in suitable localities pretty nearly all over India, with the exception of Lower Bengal, the Western Ghauts, and the Malabar coast. Wherever there is sandy ground, low stony hills, or the network of ravines which fringes the banks of so many Indian streams near their sources, or where they cut their way through low hills, ravine deer are likely to be found. They avoid heavy forest or swamp covered with high grass, nor do they usually frequent closely cultivated ground unless there is scrub, jungle, or a ravine near to which they can retire when disturbed.

They are fidgetty, restless little animals, and, like the Thibetan gazelles, are incessantly twitching their tails. Even where not much hunted they are generally pretty wild, but as they do not as a rule go far when disturbed, the sportsman can usually get a shot by perseveringly following up a herd. A steady shooting horse is of great assistance in stalking them, and on the edge of the Bikanir Desert, where they are very plentiful, the easiest way of approaching them is under cover of a riding camel. As black buck and ravine deer are often found on the same ground, the same tactics in the stalk are applicable to either. The stick-rest recommended for black buck shooting is of the greatest assistance when shooting ravine deer among bushes. The bucks are often seen alone, and herds rarely consist of more than a dozen animals. The does have thin horns, and occasionally, in bad light or jungle, pay the penalty of being mistaken for bucks.

Ravine deer shooting with a light rifle is very good fun. Straight shooting is necessary for so small a mark, and as a rule the day’s amusement can be varied by shots at black buck or small game. Colonel Howard, in 1883, got one ravine buck, one bustard, two peafowl, one sand-grouse, one duck, in a day, all shot with a rifle.

A ravine buck with a broken leg will give a good run to dogs if found in the open, but as a rule the ground these deer frequent is too broken for coursing.

An unwounded doe was run down by three dogs belonging to officers of the Rifle Brigade in 1876, but on another occasion the writer saw a fawn run clean away from a good dog. Kinloch describes how the officers of the Guides used to hunt ravine deer with dogs and falcons.

L. THE FOUR-HORNED ANTELOPE (Tetraceros quadricornis)

Native names: generally ‘Charsingha,’ ‘Choka,’ ‘Doda’; in Chota Nagpur ‘Cháorang’ (Kinloch)

Four-horned antelopes are found thinly scattered all over India, but, according to Sterndale, not in Ceylon or Burmah. They are met with in Rajputana, but the writer has never heard of them in the Punjab.

They generally live alone or in pairs, and frequent bamboo jungle, or the long grass and bushes near forests.

Their colouring varies a good deal, but it is generally a reddish-brown, paler below the forelegs, and fetlocks dark; the latter being ringed with pale marks. The female is hornless. The male has two pairs of short, smooth black horns, the front pair, which is shorter than the other pair, growing almost above the eyes, while the rear pair rises just in front of the ears. The front pair are often mere knobs, and good specimen heads, with the four horns complete, are not easy to get; in fact, this antelope is such a small animal and sticks so persistently to cover, that the majority of those that are killed are bagged by lucky snap-shots. Sterndale quotes a letter in the ‘Asian,’ signed ‘Bheel,’ in which the writer remarks: ‘It is found in the thick jungles at the foot of the hills. It selects some secluded spot, which it does not desert when disturbed, returning invariably to its hiding-place when the coast is clear.’ This peculiarity might well be taken advantage of by any sportsman desirous of obtaining a specimen; on a four-horn being put up, his hiding-place might be noted, the attendants sent on a few hundred yards, and the sportsman remain behind to intercept the animal on its return. The writer has never tried this plan, but only offers the suggestion for what it is worth.

Measurements

Authority	Height at shoulder	Total length	Weight as shot	Length of horns	Girth of horns	Span tip to tip	Remarks
Antilope bezoartica
	ins.	ins.	lbs.	ins.	ins.	ins.
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	28¼	5	17¾	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Mr. Rowland Ward	..	..	Average 85	..	..	..	”
Sterndale	32	35	..	28	..	..	‘Triangle’ in ‘The Asian’
Major Ward	..	..	..	27¾	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Col. Kinloch	..	..	..	27	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
”	..	..	..	27	..	..	”
Sir V. Brooke	..	..	..	27	5	19½	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Captain Brooke	..	..	..	26¾	..	..
Col. Kinloch	..	..	..	26¾	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	26⅜	5	17⅞	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Col. Kinloch	..	..	..	26	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Gordon Cumming	..	..	..	26	..	..	‘Wild Men and Wild Beasts’
”	..	..	..	26	..	..	(An albino)
Captn. Hervey	..	..	..	25¾	..	..
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	25⅝	4¾	20¾	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Col. Martin	..	..	..	25½	..	15	”
Sir J. Morris, K.C.S.I.	..	..	..	25⅛	5⅛	21¾	”
Hume Collection, British Museum	..	..	..	25⅜	5½	14½	”
”	..	..	..	25	4⅞	19	”
Colonel Howard	..	..	..	25	..	..
Capt. H. Petre	..	..	..	25	..	..
Gordon Cumming	..	..	..	25	..	..	‘Wild Men and Wild Beasts’
Major Greenaway	33	..	..	..	..	..
‘Spherical,’ ‘Oriental Sporting Magazine,’ 1870	..	..	83.4	..	..	..	Average weight of bucks in Allahabad district
”	..	..	70.8	..	..	..	Average weight of bucks in Bundara district
Average of good head	..	..	..	20	..	..
Portax pictus
Major FitzHerbert	51	..	..	9½	..	..
British Museum	..	..	..	9¼	6¾	4⅞	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Col. Kinloch	about 56	..	..	..	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Mr. A. O. Hume	..	..	..	8⅞	6⅝	3½	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
The Writer	..	..	..	8¾	7	..
”	..	..	..	8¾	7⅛	..
Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’	52 to 58	96 to 106	..	8 to 10	..	..
Major FitzHerbert	53	..	..	..	..	..
Major Greenaway	55	..	..	..	..	..
”	53	..	..	7½	..	..
”	50	..	..	..	..	..
Average of good head	..	..	..	8	..	..

---

Authority	Height at shoulder	Total length	Weight as shot	Length rear horns	Length front horns	Length of horns	Girth of horns	Span tip to tip	Remarks
Gazella Bennetti
	ins.	ins.	lbs.	ins.	ins.	ins.	ins.	ins.
Capt. Brooke	..	..	..	..	..	14¼	..	..	Both shot the same evening near Ferozepore
”	..	..	..	..	..	14	..	..
Major Ward	..	..	..	..	..	14	..	..	‘Sportsman’s Guide to Ladak, &c.’
Sir V. Brooke	..	..	..	..	..	13¾	4½	7	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Major FitzHerbert	..	..	..	..	..	13½	..	..
Col. Kinloch	..	..	..	..	..	13¼	..	..	‘Large Game Shooting’
Major FitzHerbert	..	..	..	..	..	13	..	..
Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’	26	42	..	..	..	12	..	..
‘Spherical,’ ‘Oriental Sporting Magazine,’ 1870	..	..	39½	..	..	..	..	..	Bucks
”	..	..	38	..	..	..	..	..
”	..	..	36	..	..	..	..	..
”	..	..	33	..	..	..	..	..
”	..	..	30	..	..	..	..	..	Does
”	..	..	28½	..	..	..	..	..
”	..	..	24	..	..	..	..	..
Average of good head	..	..	..	..	..	12	..	..
Tetraceros quadricornus
British Museum	..	..	..	4½	2⅜	..	..	..
Sir E. G. Loder, Bart.	..	..	..	4⅜	2½	..	..	..	Rowland Ward, ‘Horn Measurements’
Col. J. Evans (British Museum)	..	..	..	4	2½	..	..	..	”
Sir R. Harvey, Bart.	..	..	..	3⅝	1¾	..	..	..	”
H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh	..	..	..	3½	2	..	..	..	”
Sir E. Durand, Bart.	..	..	..	3¼	1⅞	..	..	..
British Museum	..	..	..	3⅛	½	..	..	..	”
Sterndale’s ‘Mammalia’	24 to 26	40 to 42	..	about 5	about 1½	..	..	..
Average of good head	..	..	..	3	1½	..	..	..
Memmina indica
The Writer	11	21½	about 10	..	..	..	..	..	Other measurements of this buck for stuffing: Height at croup, 11¼; length of neck, 2¼; girth of neck, 7⁸⁄₁₀; girth behind shoulder, 13½; girth middle of body, 16⁷⁄₂₀; girth in front of stifle, 13½; forearm at elbow, 3⁶⁄₁₀; thigh close to body, 6⁴⁄₁₀ ins.
Jerdon	10 to 12	22 to 23	5 to 6	..	..	..	..	..
Professor Garrod, ‘Cassells’ Nat. Hist.’	8	18	..	..	..	..	..	..

The four-horn has the stilted action peculiar to deerlets, walking on the tips of its toes. Sterndale remarks that it is higher at the croup than the withers, and runs with its neck stuck out in a poky sort of way, making short leaps.

LI. THE MOUSE DEER (Meminna indica)

Native names: ‘Pisora,’ ‘Pisai’

Habitat, the large forests of India; but it is not known, according to Jerdon, in the countries eastward of the Bay of Bengal. It is common in the bamboo forests of the Central Provinces (Sterndale). The writer has never heard of it in Northern India, nor has he even seen it in Central India; in the Western Ghauts it is common enough.

In colour it is an olive dun, with lines of pale yellow spots along the sides; the lower parts are white; the ears small and rounded; the legs fine and delicate, being scarcely thicker than an ordinary pencil; the tail is short. The male has delicate little tushes pendant from the upper jaw, like the Barking deer; the scrotum is hairless, and instead of being between the legs is behind them, like the ordinary little Indian ground squirrel, which it very much resembles in colour and markings. It is commonly found in bamboo jungle, and the writer got a good specimen in the Western Ghauts. Sterndale writes of some tame mouse deer which he had: ‘They trip about most daintily on the tips of their toes, and look as if a puff of wind would blow them away. They are said to rut in June and July, and bring forth two young about the end of the rainy season.’

LII. KYANG (Equus hemionus)

Thibet ‘Kyang’

The kyang was doubtless originally intended by Providence to fulfil some good purpose, but having turned out a failure was located in Thibet, where it was probably considered it would not be much in the way; or else it was designed to take the place of the insect life on the lower ranges and act as a blister on the temper of the sportsman. The shapoo, limb of the devil as it is, has some good points in its favour—e.g. a graceful carriage, fine horns, and it is a desirable acquisition to the bag. The kyang has nothing to recommend or excuse it. It is an ugly, donkeyfied, fiddle-headed brute, with straight shoulders. In colour it is a mealy bay with a dark-brown hog mane, dorsal stripe and tail. Its head and ears are coarse and large, and its screeching bray is as unpleasant as its general appearance. Being absolutely worthless to shoot, it is always trading on that fact, and on the utterly false pretence that it is deeply interested in the actions and habits of human beings, particularly Europeans, is for ever thrusting itself into society where it is not welcome, thereby spoiling the sportsman’s chance of a quiet interview with the animal of his choice. The one trait in its character that might be reckoned as a palliation by an unduly benevolent commentator is that it appears not to be selfish. As soon as it thinks it has got a sportsman’s temper well under way, it will scour the country round for all its friends and relations, and assemble them to enjoy together the interesting spectacle of an angry man armed with a rifle that he dare not discharge for fear of alarming something worth firing at. Hints and persuasion are thrown away, and nothing but a declaration of war has the smallest effect on kyang. A skilful diplomat may occasionally gain a temporary advantage by misleading kyang as to his intended route—getting the kyang, for instance, to believe that he wants to cross a particular pass, and then, by taking advantage of cover, escaping up a side ravine; but as a rule the sportsman has only the choice of two alternatives: either to take the first opportunity of hiding and remaining hidden till the disturbance is over, or else going to some other part of the ground.

Measurements.

Authority	Height at shoulder
Col. Kinloch	About 14 hands
Sterndale	12 to 14 hands
Major Greenaway	5 year old female, 12½ hands	5½ inches below the knee
”	male, 13 hands
The Writer	old male, 13½ hands

LIII. THE WILD ASS (Equus onager)

Native names: ‘Ghor khur,’ Hindi; ‘Ghour,’ ‘Kherdecht,’ Persian; ‘Koulan,’ Kirghiz (Sterndale).

The wild ass is common in Persia and extends through Beluchistan and Sind to the Bikaneer Desert and Kutch, its southern limit according to Jerdon being Deesa, and its eastern 75° E. longitude. It is closely allied to, if not identical with, the wild ass of Assyria, Equus hemippus.

As south of the Indus the wild ass is by no means common, and is very shy and difficult to stalk in the open desert, comparatively few have been shot by Europeans. Sterndale, quoting Major Tytler, says that on the Bikaneer Desert the natives organise a hunt once a year to catch the foals for sale to native princes, and that a full-grown one has more than once been run down fairly and speared. The Beluchis also ride down and catch the foals, and shoot the full-grown ones for food, the ground there being favourable for stalking. A gallop after a wild ass should be exciting, but few sportsmen, the writer imagines, would care to shoot more than one specimen of a beast whose sole trophies are the hoofs.

Sterndale says they stand eleven or twelve hands at the shoulder, which is considerably smaller than the kyang.

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Ovis Poli

CHAPTER XII
THE OVIS POLI OF THE PAMIR

By St. George Littledale

The great Pamir, or ‘roof of the world,’ forms the nucleus of the whole Central Asiatic highland system, and consists of a vast plateau formation some 30,000 square miles in extent, with a mean elevation of at least 15,000 ft.

This, shortly, is what modern geographers have to say of the home of Ovis Poli:

The plain is called Pamier, and you ride across it for twelve days together—finding nothing but a desert without habitations or any green thing, so that travellers are obliged to carry with them whatever they have need of; North-east, you travel forty days over mountains and wilderness, and you find no green thing. The people are savage idolaters, clothing themselves in the skins of beasts; they are in truth an evil race. There are numbers of wild beasts—among others wild sheep of great size, whose horns are a good six palms in length. From these horns shepherds make great bowls to eat from, and they use the horns also to make folds for their cattle at night.

So Marco Polo wrote of the Pamir six hundred years ago, and six centuries earlier still some Chinese pilgrims, in describing it, said that ‘it was midway between heaven and earth: the snowdrifts never cease winter or summer: the whole tract is but a dreary waste without a trace of human kind.’

These descriptions are nearly as true to-day as they were when they were first written, and this Pamir is the home of the grandest of all the sheep tribe, the great Ovis Poli.

Until very recently the Pamir was considered one of the most inaccessible places in Asia; but the Transcaspian Railway, opened in May, 1888, from the Caspian to Samarkand, has completely altered this state of affairs, though the Russian Government looks with disfavour on English travellers wishing to use the line so cheaply and expeditiously constructed for purely military and strategical purposes.

Had it not been for the untiring efforts of Sir Robert Morier, our Ambassador at St. Petersburg, continued for several months, I should never have allayed the natural suspicions of the Russian officials in the Asiatic and War Department, and obtained the necessary permission to travel by that route. I entirely owe the success of our expedition to his efforts, and I can never sufficiently thank him for the trouble taken.

But had I known as much about Russian Central Asia before as I do now, I should not have waited for the railway, but have crossed the steppes to Khokand, and thence south to the Pamir, years ago. There are three routes by which it is possible to reach the Pamir: the first from Ladak over the Kara Korum to Shahdula, and then west, either from Yarkand or from a point before you reach that city. For this route a passport would be necessary from the Chinese Government, which, though much easier to obtain now than it was formerly, is still by no means easy to get, nor, having got it, is there any certainty that there would not be obstacles thrown in the path of anyone wishing to visit the Pamir from the Chinese side.

The second is the Gilgit, Yassim, Chitral, and Badakshan route, but the political difficulties at present put this out of the question.

The third is by the Transcaspian Railway.

I have made two visits to the Pamir, the first in 1888, the second in 1890, and Mrs. Littledale accompanied me upon both occasions. In 1888 I did not know anything about the country or the chances of sport, beyond the mere fact that the Pamir was the habitat of the Poli sheep; but as to which particular district I ought to visit, or what special outfit I ought to take with me, I could obtain no information either in England or Russia. However, I had the good fortune to meet the Rev. Dr. H. Lansdell, who gave me valuable advice as to the route to Khokand.

From the Russian officials we received the greatest civility on all sides; whatever antagonism there may be between the two countries politically, it begins and ends with politics; for socially at the present day there is no nation more popular in Russia than the English, nor do I know any country wherein a man, furnished with proper letters of introduction, will be made to feel more at home than in Russia.

Saturday, August 5, 1888, found Mrs. Littledale and myself camped in a valley, flat as a billiard-table, about two miles wide, which was one vast river-bed of soft shingle, cut up into countless channels, which varied day by day, almost minute by minute, one or two hours of sunshine bringing down a flood like a mill race, which cut new channels and left old ones dry, making that which was a difficult ford in the morning almost dry by night, and moving the main stream maybe half a mile away.

The place was an idyll of desolation; not a shrub, nor a bird, nor a living soul in sight, while the few blades of grass, here and there apparent among the débris fallen from the cliffs above, had a half-hearted air, as if they knew that they were out of place. The mountains on either side were forbidding to a degree. Down their rugged sides dashed torrents from the glaciers above. The head of the valley was blocked by some grand snowpeaks, which reared their proud summits to a height of 20,000 ft. and more. There they stood (and stand) unnamed, unmeasured, and unknown, waiting for some one to conquer their virgin snows.

It had been no easy task to persuade our Kara Kirghiz hunters to come to this place at all. They asked why I wanted to go? They said that there was no grass there, that the horses would die of starvation; and did I think that the ‘Gulcha’ (the Kirghiz name for Poli rams) would stay in a place where there was nothing to eat! For generations their fathers had been hunters, and did I, a stranger, know better than they?

However, I pointed out to them that we had everywhere found skulls of fine old rams from ten to fifteen years old, and yet we had hitherto seen no ram over five years old in the flesh. How did they account for that? In reply they said that no Kirghiz had ever seen one of the big ones alive. ‘Then,’ said I, ‘come with me and I will try to show them to you,’ for I felt perfectly certain that the Poli were not different in their habits from the Ammon and the Bighorn, and that it was only a question of time before we found the old rams in some secluded spot, away from the females; and the event showed that I was right.

We left camp one morning about 4.30 a.m., and rode up the main valley for an hour or so. This brought us to the mouth of a side valley, up which we turned, keeping to the east side of it, so as to be in shadow. The elder Kirghiz, Dewanna by name, soon detected something about two miles away on some high undulating ground across the valley. Dewanna was using binoculars, and though I tried to use my telescope, my fingers were so numbed with cold that it was quite impossible to hold it steady. After some little scrutiny we all decided that the beasts were arkar—i.e. female Poli—and continued on our course for about another mile, when some extremely likely-looking ground made us pause again to take a good look ahead. By this time some little warmth had come back into my fingers, and I was able to use my Ross’s telescope again. After carefully spying over the ground and finding nothing, I turned the glass on to our old friends the arkar. The moment the glass was still, one look was sufficient. Down went the telescope, and I crept forward dragging my pony out of sight, whilst the Kirghiz, divining that I had seen something, promptly followed my example. And what a sight that glass revealed! Twenty-six old Poli rams in a band, and the smallest of them larger than anything I had yet seen! Lucky for us that we had kept under the shadow of the rocks, as but for that we had been in full view of the rams for a quarter of an hour, in spite of which they were still quietly feeding, unconscious of the deadly peril to which they were exposed.

Our camp

Men who are not sportsmen can hardly realise what my feelings were when I discovered that at last I had in front of me so many splendid specimens of an animal which for years had been the dream of every British sportsman in the East. Years ago, when in Kashmir, my wife and I had discussed every possible and impossible means of getting at the noble beast, but the more we talked with those most likely to know, the more we were convinced of the hopelessness of any attempt in the then state of affairs, and we had to content ourselves with the thought that when in the Gilgit country we had been within sixty or seventy miles as the crow flies from the inaccessible Pamir.

I may remark here, in passing, that to the Russians Karelin and Severtzoff is due the honour of having brought to Europe the first entire specimens of Poli. I believe the members of the Yarkand Expedition can claim ‘first blood’ amongst Englishmen.

As I looked at those old rams, some browsing, some lying down, my thoughts wandered back a dozen years to when on the slopes of that stupendous Nanga Parbat in Astor on a misty morning in May, three ibex (the smallest 38 ins.) bit the dust. Again my imagination jumped forward to an autumn in the ‘Frosty Caucasus’ when three right royal red deer stags fell in almost as many seconds. On occasions like these one’s thoughts are always rose-coloured. It is only the red-letter days which come forward. Pushed into the background are the long trying stalks, when perhaps for an hour you have stood up to your knees in an icy stream, not daring to move, for movement meant instant detection: forgotten, too, is that last critical moment when, as your head rose higher and higher above the rock which had been your objective point for hours, your hopes sank lower and lower until the hideous truth became plain to you that the head which you had almost counted as your own had gone never to gladden your eyes again; or it may be that there was even worse luck to forget, when wind, or light, or a tired man’s laboured breathing had to account for a .500 Express bullet driven by six drachms of powder just over a big beast’s back!

The rams we had sighted were on the other side of the valley, the bottom of which was about a mile and a half wide, quite flat and without any cover. To get at them we must either retrace our steps for about two miles, when we could cross unseen, or go forward about a mile. The Kirghiz were both in favour of going forward, whilst I wished to go back, and it was very much against my will that I let them have their own way. The rams were on the lee side of the hill and near the top, which is always a most difficult position; in fact, if the game is within one hundred or one hundred and fifty yards of the top, and the hill is pyramidical in shape (which this hill was not), I think ‘it passes the wit of man’ to approach them, for from whichever side you try you will find them either with the true wind or the shifting eddy to leeward of you. Try one side or the other, it is a position of nearly absolute safety for the rams.

By keeping behind the moraine of an old glacier a shoulder of the hill at length shut our quarry out of view, and we were able to cross the valley. In the middle of this there was a rapid stream across which the younger Kirghiz (having stripped) carried Dewanna, coming back afterwards for me. Unluckily, when nearly over, my carrier slipped and all but came down, wetting me to the knees in a stream cold as only ice water fresh from a glacier can be. After a stiff climb of about an hour, we reached the top of a small ridge from which we expected to view the rams; but though we ‘spied’ every yard carefully, we could see nothing of them. All the while I knew that we were stalking on wrong principles, and when at last, after a most careful climb, we found that we had run into an eddy of wind, and that the sheep had vanished, it caused me no surprise.

For several hours after this we walked on slowly, spying every yard as we went, for tracking on this stony ground was hopeless. On reaching a spot where the hill broke off sharply, we lay down and examined the ground, which was very much broken up into little valleys filled with great boulders, the lee side of any one of which was a likely place for the rams.

When the Kirghiz first joined us I told the interpreter to explain to them the use of a field-glass. Then they all laughed at the idea of finding game with such things; now they were always wanting to borrow them.

For about half an hour we lay spying both with binoculars and telescope, and Dewanna had just risen to his feet saying that there was nothing, when I saw by the younger Kirghiz’s manner that he had seen something. I was only just in time to drag Dewanna down, when over a brow below us came a fine Poli, followed by two others, all beasts with good heads. After a few minutes, the three lay close down together near the bottom of a small ravine, and we had a good look at them through a telescope. They were magnificent fellows, possibly out of the big lot which we had seen in the morning.

Of course the Kirghiz wanted to ‘drive’ the rams, and of course I promptly vetoed the proposition. Why is it, I wonder, that all over the world the natives are so desperately keen about driving? I could easily account for it if the general knowledge of stalking were as limited as that of the Kirghiz, who spoilt several of my earlier stalks by showing themselves behind me whilst I was ‘worming’ my way up to game, and who seemed quite ignorant of the fatal results of showing oneself upon a skyline. But it is not only the Kirghiz, for in the Caucasus two men whom I employed, perfect masters of the stalker’s art—quite as good as the best of the Kashmir Shikaris (who I consider are at the top of the tree)—were always tempting me to ‘drive.’ I am glad to say that the only time I was weak enough to yield to their solicitations the drive ended in a fiasco. Taking the younger Kirghiz with me to carry the rifle, and leaving Dewanna to watch and to signal to us the direction of any movement on the part of the rams, I took the precaution to pick up a good supply of small stones to pelt my man with whenever I found him going too fast ahead of me. The fellow had most wonderfully quick sight, so I used to send him on in front, and on previous occasions his excitement had so far carried him away that I had to be perpetually running after him to stop him; and as at that altitude (upwards of 16,000 ft. above sea level) I found that I could not shoot unless I had been walking with the greatest circumspection, it was necessary to recall him now and again by this simple and easy system of telegraphy.

Keeping well out of sight along the ridge, we found a little watercourse down which we could descend without being seen, and having carefully searched every inch of ground to make sure that there was no other Poli in our path who might spoil our stalk, we crept down to within three hundred yards of where we had last seen our three rams. Here the Kirghiz took off his sandals, while I took the Henry double Express out of its cover, made sure that all was ready, and then handed it back to him, as every extra pound to carry adds to the difficulty of keeping your breath.

I was shod in tennis shoes, with red rubber soles three-quarters of an inch thick, to my mind the very perfection of foot-gear for stalking, as they are perfectly noiseless, will outwear two ordinary leather soles among the rocks, and are only dangerous on snow or ice.

Softly as mice we crept up the slope of a little ridge on the further side of which we had last seen the Poli. Our man on the hill made no sign, so that all was right so far. A little short of the top, I took the rifle and crept up the last few yards alone. Peeping over the top, I could just see the tip of a horn behind a rock about one hundred yards below. Taking off my cap to place my rifle upon it, for if fired resting on a rock without a pad the jar would send the bullet wide, I cocked the weapon and lay there waiting.

The wind was right and the moment they moved they were at my mercy. Whilst waiting I sent the Kirghiz about ten yards to my right to see if he could make out in which position the big one was lying, as from my point of view they were half hidden, and it was difficult to say for certain which was the big head.

Suddenly up they jumped and stood for one moment looking up the hill. The big one was end on, facing me, but I had had a good rest, my heart had ceased to beat wildly and my hand was steady, so squeezing the trigger gradually and firmly, the report of the rifle was followed by the loud smack which tells an old hand all he wants to know. Not wasting a look on the big one, I shifted the sights on to one of the others and fired just as he bounded off. Another smack told that that bullet, too, had found its billet, but the beast made off with its companions. On dashing frantically down the hill and up the other side of a small ravine, I saw one Poli standing and looking about him two hundred and fifty yards off. Lying down I tried to take a careful aim, but I found the rifle was pointing ten feet over his back one second and the next twenty feet below him. This was no good, so I lay quiet in the hope that he might be so unsophisticated as to stay there until my poor panting frame recovered its steadiness; but alas! in a few seconds he was off.

However, I was satisfied that he was unhurt, and the wounded one probably lay between us and him, so that I at once took up the search for the beast, the man on the hill coming in now very handily, directing us by a prearranged code of signals.

Presently this man (Dewanna) got very excited and kept signalling ‘below, below.’ As we were then at the bottom of the valley we were at a loss to know how to go any lower, when out from behind a large boulder came the Poli, very sick indeed; but to make sure I gave him another barrel and rushed up to gloat over my latest prize, measuring 59 ins. along the left and 58½ ins. along the right horn.

I then started up hill back to where the first one lay. On getting up to him I was rather disappointed, as I had thought that he was bigger than his comrade, and I pulled out the tape and began to measure: ‘sixty, sixty-one, two, two and a half’—thank goodness, at last I had got a trophy that would hold its own in any company, and one that will still be a comfort, a joy, and a thing of beauty when old Time has so stiffened my joints as to make this most glorious and exciting of all sports only a memory for me.[26]

Having skinned our beasts and packed their heads upon one pony, the younger Kirghiz, careless of the possibility of a fall and consequent impalement, twisted himself somehow in among the twisted horns on the pony’s back, and so, he riding and we on foot, we turned towards camp, warned by the waning glories of the sky, the dark shadows stealthily creeping across the snows, and the little rills frozen into silence, that the Night King was coming, and that it was well to hurry. As we reached camp our interpreter met us, and I think everyone echoed his ‘Vraiment, c’est assez grand!’ as my first big head was scrutinised.

In 1888 we had wandered about until we found the valley in which the above took place, and then having discovered a good hunting ground sat down to work, with the satisfactory result of fifteen rams bagged, all but four being over 50 ins. and several the right side of 60 ins.

In 1890 we decided to try the Southern Pamir, as all the natives agreed that the further south you went the bigger the heads became. But a visit to the Southern Pamir meant much more elaborate preparation than heretofore, and our modest little caravan of twelve horses all told in 1888 swelled to the considerable number of forty in 1890; for it was not only necessary to take food for ourselves and our men, but also for the animals, and for each horse carrying a load of baggage we had to have an extra horse carrying barley to feed him. Besides this we took four or five horseloads of firewood, for there are long stretches of the Pamir that are absolutely devoid of vegetation of any kind—places where even the travellers ‘stand by’ for fuel, ‘Boortsa eurotia,’ is not to be found. Without boortsa life on the high timberless plateaux of Central Asia is indeed hard, for that insignificant-looking plant affords splendid fuel. Green or dry it makes a blazing fire, and though it wants constant attention and soon burns out, where there is no dry dung it is a perfect god-send.

We had made up our minds not to return by Turkestan if we could get across the Hindu Kush, and down into India; but as our chance of getting through was very uncertain, we were obliged to secure our retreat by establishing depôts along the return route, of barley, flour, firewood, &c., all of which entailed extra transport.

We found our tent, though it was lined and had a double fly, so cold and so troublesome to keep upright during the furious gales which even in summer sweep over the Pamir, that on our second expedition we took with us a couple of Kirghiz yourts in addition to this tent, and although the yourts are not fastened to the ground in any way, yet, owing to their being dome-shaped, they never showed the slightest tendency to blow over. Once inside our yourt, a stormy evening had no fears for us, nor had we ever to rush out in scanty garments on a bitter night to refasten some yielding tent-peg.

On the Abchur Pamir there were immense quantities of Poli horns, most of them of very large size, one head which I measured being 69 ins., though even this was beaten by one which was shown to me at Simla by Sir Frederick Roberts, who kindly allowed me to photograph it. The head was given to Sir Frederick Roberts by the Maharajah of Kashmir, and is as far as I know the biggest head on record—length, 75 ins.; tip to tip, 54½ ins.; circumference round the base, 16 ins.

MR. ST. GEORGE LITTLEDALE’S BAG OF OVIS POLI, 1888

Let me recall one day out of my 1890 expedition, as another sample of Poli shooting I have done. We had camped at the end of June by Victoria Lake, which was still three parts frozen, and after a short and fruitless hunt had recrossed to the Alichur Pamir. The weather was changeable and the wind shifty, but our sport had been fair. One stormy evening I spied three rams a long way off. Before we reached them, a flurry of snow hid them from us, and when the snow cleared we could not see them. We decided that they must have gone over the hill for shelter, but on looking for them they unfortunately got our wind, and bolting out from some rocks dashed across an open piece of ground. I put the 200 yards sight up and fired at the centre one, which was a monster, towering above its two companions, and altogether by far the biggest sheep I had ever seen—its horns, I should fancy, certainly measuring something over 70 ins. I saw the dust fly beyond just over its back, and had no time for a second shot before the sheep disappeared in a dip of the ground. I felt low at missing such a grand fellow, but it was a running shot at quite two hundred yards, and a hit would have been more or less of a fluke.

As they were a very long time coming up the other side of the ravine, we went to see what had kept them, and found that the two smaller sheep were waiting for the big fellow, who was lagging wearily behind. As soon as they had got over the ridge we followed them and found their track, which was very bloody. My bullet, instead of going over my beast, must have gone through him without expanding, and it was not long before we found him lying down on a snow bank which was streaked with his blood. Here I could have stalked and finished him, but for the excitement of one of the Kirghiz, who showed himself and made the beast get up again. After this he kept lying down at intervals, travelling a shorter distance and resting longer each time.

The vitality of Ovis Poli is something extraordinary. Here was a beast shot through the lungs, as was proved by the frothy blood which poured from his wounds, and yet he went eight hundred or a thousand feet up a snow slope. Having allowed him to get out of sight we followed him, but just as we reached the top of the slope a heavy storm coming on obliterated everything in six inches of fresh snow. As soon as the storm was over, numbed and cold though I was, I tried to follow by kicking the new snow away with my feet till I found blood, but eventually I lost the ram and had to leave him. It was a terrible disappointment, for I fear I shall never look upon his like again. My attention had now to be turned to my Kirghiz companion, who had been taken violently sick and lay there unable to move. I had no brandy to give him, and not even a coat to wrap him up in, for we had left our sheepskins at the bottom of the hill. However, I rubbed his hands vigorously, and after a time he recovered sufficiently to descend leaning upon my shoulder. I believe it was nothing but the height which affected him, and, extraordinary as it may seem, two other Kirghiz who regularly spent four or five months in every year on the great Alai, as their forefathers had done before them, had been completely knocked up a few weeks before this by the two or three thousand feet additional elevation at which they found themselves with me, and had been compelled to leave the Pamir. They are a careless happy-go-lucky race, these Kirghiz, easy to offend as children, but as ready to ‘make it up,’ and quite harmless if well handled. On life they set but little store; but the words of one old chief as he handled my rifle are still in my ears. ‘Ah,’ he said, with a sigh, ‘and even the man who made that gun must die.’

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CHAPTER XIII
CAMPS, TRANSPORT, ETC.

By Clive Phillipps-Wolley

It is not possible to devise a camp outfit which would suffice in all climates and under every condition of travel, and for that reason a few notes on the special outfit necessary for each country have been given where requisite.

But, although different climates require different camp equipment, there are many things common to camp life all over the globe, and a brief sketch of the needs and shifts of such a life in temperate, tropical and arctic countries may at any rate serve as a basis upon which to found a plan of campaign in any country.

It must be understood from the outset that these notes are for the hunter and not for the scientific explorer, whose needs are excellently cared for in the Royal Geographical Society’s ‘Hints to Travellers,’ and that the beau-ideal hunter is he who can accomplish most with the least assistance from anyone else. The most perfect outfit is that which, while it contains all things really necessary to success, includes no superfluities, and is in the highest degree portable.

The cost of hiring help in different countries has of course an immense effect upon the nature of the camp equipment employed, and what would be but a beggarly outfit in India where you pay your beaters 3d. per diem would be extravagantly luxurious in British Columbia where you pay your Indians 1½ dollar a day.

But to succeed all the world over in big game shooting, a man should be able not only to find his own game and kill it when found, but to skin it, pack it, pack his own food on his shoulders or his horse’s as the circumstances require, cook his dinner, choose and pitch his camp; in fact, he should be able to do everything which he wants done for himself without aid from anyone else.

It by no means follows that because a man can do these things he will be obliged to do them, but there are times in every hunter’s life at which the almighty dollar fails him, and then it is that the beauty of being able to help himself becomes apparent. It is not a bad plan just for once (say for a single day) to do entirely without extraneous aid. At the end of the day you will probably find that a good many things, from tying a bowline knot to lighting a camp fire, look a good deal simpler than they are.

We will consider then, first, what are the essentials of camp life and camp outfit in countries where the temperature ranges during the shooting season from 80° above to say 10° below zero, a fair sample of which may be found on the mainland of British Columbia.

One of the first maxims I would lay down is, bring with you all the most important items of your outfit, rifles, ammunition, tents, &c., even though the cost of transport be heavy; but, on the other hand, do not load yourself with less important items, such as rugs, blankets, cooking utensils, saddles and smaller things. You can get most of the ordinary necessaries of life in every country you enter, and in nine cases out of ten the native manages to evolve the article best suited to the daily needs of the country he lives in and the life he leads, e.g. the so-called Mexican saddle or the Indian moccasin. There is another thing worth considering, and that is that if you must spend money somewhere upon your outfit, it is as well to spend it where the spending of it may earn you the goodwill and assistance of the people amongst whom you are going to hunt.

THE CAMP

The first matter to be considered upon reaching your starting point, the point I mean at which the locomotive leaves you, is the question of transport, a very serious matter to the man who has been ‘dumped’ down for the first time in his life at a frontier station with a huge pile of belongings and not even a friendly porter to carry them under shelter for him.

In North America (indeed, in most countries) the commonest method of transporting freight from one point to another in regions where the railway does not run is by pack animals, for which reason we will treat of ‘packing’ with pack ponies first.

In all the countries known to the writer the cheapest way is to buy your ponies, taking your chances of selling them when you don’t require them any longer. Hiring your animals is an expensive plan, especially in America, where the hire of a pack pony is at least one dollar per diem, whereas his cost would not exceed thirty dollars. Thus even if you gave your ponies away (and you cannot always do much better) at the end of a two months’ trip, you would have saved thirty dollars by purchasing outright. In buying your pack animals don’t leave the purchase of them until the last moment. If you do, there is no one in the world who better understands the art of extracting the highest price from a man who must buy than the ‘untutored savage.’

Choose animals of short cobby build rather than those which are more ‘leggy,’ and in addition to all the ordinary precautions observed in dealing with horse-flesh, take care to examine your purchases to see whether they have ever had sore backs. If you find scars, however well the wound has healed, don’t buy the pony, as backs which have once been sore are extremely apt to break out again at the first opportunity.

You may estimate the number of ponies wanted for your expedition by the weight which you require them to carry, allowing from 150 to 200 lbs. to each pony, and although professional packers will sometimes put as much as 400 lbs. upon a beast on a road, 200 lbs. is a full load for such a creature as the ordinary cayuse on such trails as those which generally lead to game countries.

Having bought your ponies and hired a man as camp cook who can pack and look after the beasts, take precautions against losing your animals. Of course your packer ought to do this, but he won’t. Buy picket pegs and ropes for your saddle-horses, and good leather hobbles for the pack animals, as well as a bell for the leader of the pack train, and see, personally, that for the first few nights, at any rate, every horse is hobbled or picketed, including even your hunter’s horse, in spite of his protestations that ‘that cayuse won’t stray’; and see, too, that one of the horses has the bell on at night. During the day you can take the bell off or silence it by shoving a fir cone into it, or some such simple device, if you hope to see game along the trail; but at night, insist upon the bell and the hobbles being worn, and in this way even if your beasts have only poor feed they won’t stray far, whilst if they do the bell will help you to find them. As I pen these lines I am as sure that some one of my readers will curse his luck for having neglected this advice as I am that death and the taxman will arrive in due season. In passing, I may remark that the man who takes the trouble to silence his pack train’s bell and his packers’ mouths, whilst he rides half a mile ahead of his train when on the march, will secure many a shot which would otherwise never have fallen to his share.

In picketing your horses use a bowline knot, see that the loop made will run easily round the tree to which each horse is tied if you are not using a proper picket, and in any case see that there are no bushes or stumps in his way round which he can get tied up in the night.

Next to your ponies your pack-saddles are the most important part of your equipment, and though you can no doubt pack either with ordinary pack-saddles, or with parfleches (mere leathern envelopes depending from either side of the pony), still the best of all the many contrivances for packing is, to my mind, the aparejo, an arrangement of Mexican origin obtainable for about twenty-five dollars all over America.

With good aparejos, sweat-pads and saddle-blankets of stout material, and a man who knows how to put them all on, there need be no sore backs, and very few halts to rearrange packs during the longest trip in the roughest country.

Cinch him up

Be careful, however, to see that your aparejo is long enough for your beast, otherwise you will get him so chafed under the tail as to be unable to work. See, too, that your horses get a rough rub down before being saddled, and that your blankets are ample and well put on. Just as there are many kinds of pack-saddles, so are there many ways of tying on your packs; but one good way is sufficient, and that known as the diamond hitch has been adopted almost unanimously as the best by the men who live by packing. Here I might give directions for the tying of the diamond hitch, but the object of this book is to supply information useful to the hunter, and written instructions in the tying of the diamond hitch would not fall into that category. A man may learn to pack by practical experience and with pack, pony and an expert before him, but I do not believe anyone could learn from printed directions. Should anyone care to try, an excellent series of articles upon the subject, by a thoroughly practical man signing himself ‘Yo,’ may be found in ‘Forest and Stream’ for June 2, 1887, and following numbers. Let your camp man be a practical packer, would be my first advice to anyone meditating a shooting expedition in America. To anyone who had ever made such an expedition such advice would be unnecessary. There should be no difficulty in finding a man who can both pack and (in a rough way) cook. I was going to say that any fool could cook sufficiently well for a hunter’s camp, but the recollection of beans fried without boiling, a vivid memory of some of the abuses of baking powder, and a certain black-currant pudding boiled without basin or pudding-cloths, make me pause.

In addition to the aparejos, sweat-pads, and saddle-blankets before mentioned, all of which go under your packs, you must provide yourself with what are known as manteaux, i.e. squares of stout waterproofed canvas which are thrown over the packs to protect them not only from rain, but also from pointed boughs and such like which would otherwise tear the packs in passing through a timbered country. With these, cinches, sling ropes, halter ropes, and a good supply of spare rope of the kinds known respectively as half-and quarter-inch, the sportsman should be able to transport all he requires through almost any country.

As to the packs themselves, I would recommend that as far as possible everything should be put up in stout canvas bags and labelled. This plan saves infinite trouble in the long run. Some things of course must be carried in tins, and among these should be your matches, which will thus be protected from damp, and will have no chance of making dinner a horror, as the ordinary sulphur matches loose amongst provisions have a habit of doing. Even for matches a stout well-corked bottle is better than the best tin.

Packs are generally arranged as two side packs, and one top pack, and square side packs (in wooden boxes) with blankets, tents, and such like bundles for top pack seem most convenient. Round side packs are apt to shift.

Above all things see that your side packs are about equal in weight and hang about level. The contents of the packs must depend to a great extent upon the tastes and means of the hunter, but for simple men travelling in a difficult country the list of necessaries given below should suffice for two sportsmen, two gillies and a cook during an expedition of two months’ duration.

I have allowed a gillie or hunter to each sportsman, as well as a camp cook between them, although my own experience has been that your greatest happiness and best success begin when you have learned to hunt alone. That two make more noise than one; that your own eyes (not another’s) are the best eyes for you to use; and that a white man with practice is better than any red skin, are articles of faith which will be approved by experience.

However, of this more in another place. The accompanying list of stores, &c., has been based upon the lists of things used by the writer in former expeditions, in none of which (at any rate since 1883) has there been any running short of supplies.

In this list I have only allowed enough bacon for men who know how to hunt in a country where game is to be had for the hunting. Of course if game is scarce, more supplies might be needed, whilst equally of course, if the country is very difficult and the temptation sufficient, keen men should be able to get along with half a pound of flour and four rashers of bacon per diem, and even this with tea, blankets, rifles, cartridges, &c., will be found quite enough to carry in a mountain country with no one to help you.

I have suggested cocoa as an alternative for tea, for I find that the latter, as it is generally brewed in camp, is intensely indigestible, and is apt to keep even a tired man awake at night. Cocoa, on the other hand, is refreshing, it is almost as effectual a ‘pick-me-up’ as a whisky and soda, and does very well in its place. For men who do not stop to lunch, cakes of chocolate or raisins are recommended, as being very portable and nutritious.

My second list of necessaries consists of kitchen gear, and although it may easily be reduced to a ‘billy,’ a frying-pan, and your fingers if needs must, it is as it stands about as small as is compatible with comfort. Cups, plates, &c., should all be made of what is known as ‘granite iron,’ as this material is very strong, will not crush like tin, and retains heat a long time, an important point when your meals are taken in the open air of an October evening in the mountains.

Provisions and other requisites for five men for two months

		lbs.
Flour	6 sacks =	300
Yeast-powder	18 tins
Bacon	=	100
Dried apples	=	50
Sugar	=	50
Beans	=	50
Coffee	=	12
Tea	=	8
(or Cocoa	=	12)
Pepper	=	1
Salt	=	30
Onions	=	60
Worcester sauce
Matches
Candles (three dozen composite)
Soap
Tobacco
A small can of oil for rifles
Spare rope
Two dozen horse-shoes, nails, and a shoeing hammer
A few yards of linen for dish cloths
Ten pounds of powdered alum for curing skins
Two spare deer-skins for patching moccasins; some waxedthread, which must serve your turn until you can get somesinews, to sew your moccasins with
A cobbler’s awl and needle
File
A housewife containing buttons, thread, needles, darning needle, wool, &c.
A little ingenuity and abundance of good temper

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Kitchen gear

• One nine-inch iron pot with a ‘nest’ of three smaller pots inside; these should all be ‘tinned’ or enamelled inside
• Two tin milk-pans for kneading dough in
• Two coffee-cans or ‘billies’
• Two frying-pans to make dampers and fry bacon. Have these made with folding handles
• Five soup-plates, five tea-cups (both plates and cups to be made of enamelled iron)
• Five knives, five forks, five soup-spoons, five tea-spoons, one meat-knife, a big cooking fork, one small meat saw
• Two axes and two spare axe-handles

Almost of more importance than either food or kitchen gear is the sportsman’s ‘sleeping outfit,’ if I may use the jargon of the camp.

The common A tent is the one most used in America, but probably there is nothing better than that known as Whymper’s Alpine tent, made of Willesden canvas, as recommended in ‘Hints to Travellers.’ For extremely rough work I have used a little ‘tente d’abri’ into which we had to crawl on our hands and knees, but which held two men, kept them dry, and weighed with poles, pegs, ropes, and a bag to pack it in, only nineteen pounds.

I am inclined to think that even this weight might be lessened if required. But whatever the tent you use, you should in all cases have a floor to fit it, rather larger than the ground covered by the tent, and made of some stout waterproof material. This floor may be made to attach to the sides of the tent if so desired.

A sleeping bag or blankets must be taken for each person, and if blankets are used, three pairs of four-point Hudson Bay blankets if properly arranged will suffice to keep a man fairly warm, even with the thermometer 10° below zero. But they must be properly arranged, and to do this one pair of blankets should be sewn up at the bottom, along the whole of one side, and halfway up the other side, the other half to be fitted with tapes or buttons. This makes a kind of bag which effectually prevents a man from throwing off his clothes in his sleep, and keeps out those bitter little draughts which otherwise so annoyingly creep in and dispel the soundest slumbers. An inflatable air-cushion is light to pack, and handy either as a pillow or as a seat in camp. The air-cushion makes a better seat than pillow, for which the writer always uses a canvas bag packed with spare clothes, flannels, &c., carried inside the roll of blankets. The sleeping bag made of blankets, with an outside covering of tarpaulin to lace up over the blankets, and with a hood or pillow-case of tarpaulin attached to hold pillow or canvas clothes-bag, is the most convenient outfit of the kind for America. Before leaving the subject of beds, a subject of the utmost moment to the hunter, let me point out that one of the most comfortable and simplest of camp bedsteads may be made thus. Let your manteau measure 6 ft. 6 ins. by 4 ft., and let it be made of the strongest waterproof canvas, two pieces of equal size being sewn together so as to make an endless sack. In this form your manteau will do duty as a cover for the packs by day, and at night you can cut two thin poles about 7 ft. 6 ins. long, pass them lengthwise through this endless sack, take two logs about a foot in diameter and 5 ft. or more in length, and cut notches in them 4 ft. apart; then set one at your feet and one at your head, stretch out your manteau and rest the ends of the poles in the notches, and in ten minutes you will have made yourself a spring mattress above the reach of the damp. If, however, you are content with a brush bed—and the sweet aromatic balsam boughs should be good enough for any man—cut only the smaller boughs and arrange them in rows, the points of each row overlapping and covering the thick and hard butts of the row above. Hemlock makes the best of all bedding, and keeps out damp better than any other brush. It is a good plan before finally arranging your bed to lie down on it, find out where your hip-bone comes, and dig out a hollow for it to fit into. Anyone who has slept upon a hard and absolutely level surface will understand why this is recommended.

Finally, as to clothing, I have ventured to recommend a list of simple necessaries, more as a hint to those preparing for an expedition than as a rule for their guidance. In his choice of clothes, every man will to a certain extent follow his own fancy, but there are some few things essential to health, and others essential to success. For still hunting in timber I consider moccasins, or at any rate tennis shoes, essential. For a tender-footed man tennis shoes with thick red india-rubber soles are the very best of foot-gear. Except that you cannot cling with them as you can with the moccasin, they are nearly as good as the latter, and certainly save your feet as you come down hill, among sharp loose stones, in the dark; but they are hard to repair, and impossible to replace in the woods. Flannel is the best thing to wear next to your skin, and a good supply of dry flannels to put on when you come in at night is of the utmost importance. A pair of ‘rubber shoes’ to slip on in camp is well worth carrying, so that if you are obliged to go out in the snow or slush after you have made yourself comfortable for the night, you need not wet your feet again. Let your clothes be of some neutral tint; my own especial weakness is an Indian hunting-shirt made as plainly as possible of tanned deerskin. The colour of this is excellent; the material is very light and tough, and when you top a ridge to which you have painfully climbed for half an hour, the bitter wind which meets you does not go through a buckskin shirt as easily as it does through tweed or homespun. In wet weather—i.e. in real drenching rain—such a shirt is not as good by any means as tweed, as it then becomes exceedingly cold and unpleasant to wear. A broad belt of webbing (not of leather, for leather cuts you) to contain your cartridges may be used over the shirt, if it has not a great brass fastening in front as most belts have. The object of this fastening I suppose is to reflect the sun’s rays and make a dazzling spot of light on the abdomen of the hunter, about as useful in attracting the attention of every living thing as anything which the ingenuity of the gentlemen who sell ‘sporting goods’ could contrive. Metal buttons, metal watch-chains, uncovered rifle barrels, and even the end of your stalking glass, will reflect the sun’s rays in the same dangerous manner, so that though you may be otherwise unnoticed, the attention of your quarry will be drawn to what appears to him to be a little star amongst the grass on the other side of the ravine. Added to the dangers of their appearance is the danger that if you wear any metal trappings about your person, they may ring against one another terribly loud and clear just at the moment when even the beating of your own heart seems unwarrantably and absurdly noisy. For these reasons avoid metal adornments; keep a loose cover over your rifle barrels, be careful not to catch the sun’s rays with your glass when spying, use a watch-chain of buckskin, and don’t carry a lot of loose change in your trousers pocket.

Attached to your belt will probably be a knife for administering a coup de grâce, and for skinning. If you would not lose it, adopt some such plan for securing it as is suggested by the accompanying woodcut. None of the ordinary spring fastenings are proof against the rough usage of the hills.

Knife fastening

If you wear knickerbockers, have them made loose at the knee, so as not to hamper you in your stride up hill, or wear them unfastened at the knee; but though less smart in appearance, ordinary tweed or flannel trousers, with the bottoms tucked into a stout pair of woollen socks, are as workmanlike as anything ever made.

Whatever you do, don’t wear canvas overalls, although you may be strongly advised to do so. I wore a pair once, and in a week they were so ragged that I had to borrow a petticoat in which to return to civilisation, and, moreover, they are not only easily torn, but they emit a strident scraping sound, whenever a twig touches them, which can be heard very far off.

Loose buckskin gloves sound rather luxurious wear for a hunter, but the hardest Siwash wears them; and as your hands have often as rough usage among the rocks as your feet, they are necessary. Below is a list of clothes, &c., for a two months’ trip in temperate climates.

Clothing for two months

• Two tweed suits
• One buckskin shirt
• Two tweed caps
• Four flannel shirts
• Four pairs of flannel drawers
• Six pairs of woollen socks or stockings
• Moccasins: the number of these depends entirely upon the nature of the shooting. After ibex, I have worn out a pair in a morning, but for ordinary work a pair of good thick moccasins should last four or five days
• Eight handkerchiefs: not white, but some dull colour which will not attract attention from afar, if inadvertently pulled out in sight of game
• One pair of short waterproof boots (gum boots)
• One waterproof cape, such as is made by Cording; an armless contrivance, very light and portable, used I think by cyclists
• Three pairs of blankets, one waterproof sheet, one air-cushion
• One belt of webbing for cartridges
• One pair of loose buckskin gloves, one pair of woollen mits
• One boating sweater

Having now enumerated most of the essential items of a camp outfit, it may be as well to sketch roughly the ordinary routine of a day’s march with pack ponies.

In a well-ordered camp someone should be stirring just as the stars begin to lose their brilliancy and to fade before the coming of day. An early start is most important, as it goes a long way towards ensuring an early camp, and that camp should be made early whilst there is still plenty of daylight is of vital importance to everyone with the expedition. The discomforts of camping in the dark only require to be tried once to be avoided for the future.

Whilst one man lights the fire and gets the breakfast ready, let another go for the horses, and a third put the beds together and make the packs ready. Save time whenever you can, for unavoidable delays are all too frequent with a pack train. A cayuse is not as other horses are. When you have sought animals sorrowing, in the chill dawn, and found them hiding, in a long line one behind another with their heads down, behind a bush no bigger than a respectable cabbage, or have watched your bell-horse roll his bell in the sand, shake himself to see if it will ring, and then trot away contented, you will know more about cayuses, and agree that they are the hardiest, most sure-footed, and ‘meanest’ of all created beings. See then that you get them together early in the day, and have the packs on their backs and ‘all set’ within half an hour of the time at which you finish your breakfast.

When you have the ponies packed, some one of the hunters may ride well ahead, but the man who ‘leads out,’ i.e. guides the pack train, should never ride far ahead. If he does, the pack animals will at once begin to stray. The best pace to travel at is a fairly brisk walk; anything more than this generally disarranges the packs and necessitates halts to rearrange them, or causes sore backs. From fifteen to twenty-five miles a day, according to the character of the country to be ridden through, is an excellent day’s work for pack ponies, and from two to three miles an hour a fair pace to travel at.

Keep your temper in driving pack ponies across a side hill, or along a steep and narrow trail. Pack ponies are as mean as—civilised words won’t express their ‘meanness’—and when a pony knows that he has another between himself and the whip, and that the whip cannot reach him owing to the narrowness of the trail, he will stop and browse. If you press the pony next you to get at the offender, one of them will go head over heels down the slope, and at every bump there will be little puffs, one white, one brown. This means that when that pony reaches the bottom of that hill he may still be alive, but there will be no more cocoa and no more baking powder for that expedition.

‘Good-bye to the groceries’

Some men remove packs in the middle of the day, and halt for lunch. This I consider a mistake, and a waste of time. An early camp, say at four o’clock, is better both for horses and men.

In choosing your camp consider first these points: water, food, fuel, and shelter from wind and from the sight of such game as may be in the neighbourhood. As to this last point, it is as well not to allow fires to be lighted or wood chopped until a careful survey of the neighbourhood has been made from some adjacent height, especially if the camp has been pitched in the district which you mean to hunt. Not long since my friends and myself had the mortification of seeing the largest band of sheep I ever saw move away while we were stalking them, not because they detected us, but because they could hear the ringing strokes of our men’s axes in the valley below. A camp without feed for the horses is the worst of all camps, and luckily occurs very rarely. If there is any likelihood of such camps being unavoidable, it may be necessary to carry grain for the horses, although many ‘cayuses’ will not at first eat it, and frequently when they do eat it suffer from lampas and other ailments consequent upon a sudden change of diet. Lancing the bars of a horse’s mouth with a sharp penknife will procure relief from lampas, which is probably the commonest complaint amongst pack ponies. In camping in America, beware of camping near burnt timber—that is to say, so near as to be in danger from a falling tree, a constantly recurring risk where huge trunks are burnt almost through, and high winds are common.

Whatever you do, do not camp on old Indian camping grounds. Indians rarely leave anything worth having in a camp, but they do leave things worth avoiding. Again, don’t be tempted to use an old horse-blanket to put over your feet on a very cold night. Men will tell you that the insects which infest animals won’t touch men. I remember one unfortunate party which owned a horse suffering from the third plague of Egypt, and owing to a careless use of one of that horse’s blankets the plague passed on to the horse’s rider. The woodticks which infest the woods in early spring are as omnivorous as the insects before alluded to. When once these creatures have buried their heads in your flesh they should be removed with care. If you leave their heads in, an ugly sore may be the result.

Arrived in camp, let it be your first care to see that the horses are watered, hobbled and turned into the best ‘feed’ in the neighbourhood; see that the packs are secured against rain, and that an ample supply of wood is cut for use during the night. In dealing with Indians don’t do too much for yourself, however competent and willing you may be. The majority of Indians are very apt to encourage a man willing to help himself, by allowing him to do all the work.

Give men and horses a complete rest every Sunday, and utilise part of the day for looking through and taking stock of your stores.

There is still another list of necessaries to be added to those already given, but luckily it is only a very short one. As illness may possibly visit the hunter’s camp, he must be prepared for it, and a few simple remedies for the ills most likely to befall him are worth providing.

Quinine for low fevers, aperient medicine of some kind (podophyllin pills for choice), and an ounce of laudanum in case of diarrhœa or colic, together with a few mustard plaisters, a roll of india-rubber bandaging, and some diachylon plaister for cuts, have always proved a sufficient medical outfit for any party to which I have belonged.

The quinine, if employed as a preventive measure, may be taken in three-grain doses, but in case you are too late to ward fever off double the dose.

Of laudanum twenty drops in water, when in pain or purged, is a fair dose.

But with average luck no big game hunter ever gets ill until he returns to civilisation and high feeding. Then, alas! his troubles begin.

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CHAPTER XIV
A FEW NOTES ON RIFLES AND AMMUNITION

By H. W. H.

Express Rifles.-These are usually made of five different calibres—viz. .360, .400, .450, .500, and .577—and are called ‘Expresses’ on account of the high velocity imparted to comparatively light bullets by the heavy charges of powder used in these rifles. Many sportsmen are under the impression that all Expresses of the same bore are practically the same—at any rate, as far as their power, velocity, &c., are concerned—and look upon, say, a .500 Express as a fixed quantity. No greater mistake could be made. Take two .500 bores, apparently alike, and the one may be a powerful and effective rifle, and the other quite uncertain, at any rate against the larger kinds of even soft-skinned animals. The reason of this is that the first is rifled and sighted for, and constructed to carry, a fairly long bullet weighing about 440 grains, and having a comparatively short hole in front (see figs. 3 and 4), while the latter fires the ordinary short bullet, which has a relatively larger hole in front, light walls and a thin base (see fig. 1), the result being that when it is fired at, say, the shoulder of a powerful tiger or bear, the whole of the bullet will probably break up into small pieces, causing a big flesh wound, but no part of the bullet has sufficient weight and momentum to penetrate through the bones or powerful muscles of the animal so as to reach any vital part. Unfortunately, the higher the velocity of the projectile, the more the bullet breaks up; consequently the short range at which such game is usually killed tells still more against this type of bullet for such sport.

The short Express bullet may be considerably improved, and greater penetration obtained, by having the hollow shorter and tapered (see fig. 2).

Fig. 1.—340 grains

Fig. 2.—360 grains

Rifles constructed for these short bullets are decidedly inferior to those arranged for the longer projectile.

Fig. 3 shows the long .500 bullet with a heavy fuse.

Fig. 4 shows the same bullet with a small taper hole.

Fig. 3.—440 grains

Fig. 4.—460 grains

It is certainly now for the most part acknowledged that rifles firing this type of bullet are much more trustworthy, giving as they undoubtedly do increased penetration and a more smashing blow. The front portion of the projectile generally breaks up in the animal shot, and the base part, having sufficient energy remaining to pass through the body, will nearly always be found under the elastic skin upon the other side. These rifles have the further advantage of giving accurate shooting at comparatively long ranges where the ordinary Express would fail.

Figs. 5 to 10 show some specimens of this type of bullet (.500 and .577 bore) taken from under the skins of tigers, after having passed through the animals, proving the great velocity and killing power of this form of projectile, and demonstrating that the whole energy of the charge had been effectually utilised.

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

Fig. 10

A double .500 rifle to carry the lighter bullet may be made to weigh about 9 lbs., while to carry the longer and heavier bullet the weight should be nearer 9½ lbs. But when the increased power and penetration obtained are taken into consideration, probably few sportsmen will object to this slight extra weight. A crushing blow that may be depended upon is what is required, and reliance cannot be placed (except, perhaps, for deer stalking) upon the short, light bullets so much used. No doubt a good deal of game is killed with the light bullets, even up to and including tigers, &c.; but much has been lost, and many accidents have taken place, in consequence of the bullet breaking up too soon, causing only a flesh wound, and not having sufficient penetration to reach a vital part of the animal shot. The above remarks apply both to .450 and .577 rifles, but especially to the latter, so without going into further details illustrations are here given of the light .450 and .577 bullets generally used (see fig. 11), and the longer ones now recommended (see fig. 12).

Fig. 11

.450
270 grains

.577
455 grains

Fig. 12

.450
340 grains

.577
625 grains

Since Sir Samuel Baker has so strongly recommended .577 6-dr. rifles, they have become much better known, and are now much more used than formerly. There can be no question that when fired with proper bullets they are very effective weapons, even against the largest kinds of game. Of course for use against the latter it is necessary to employ solid hardened bullets.

The weapon used and recommended by Sir Samuel Baker is somewhat heavier than the ordinary .577, weighing between 11 and 12 lbs.; it was specially made for him, and is sighted up to 400 yards.

For soft-skinned animals, Sir Samuel used solid pure lead bullets, and he always found them deliver the whole power of the charge upon the animal, being generally forced into the shape of a mushroom, and found under the skin upon the opposite side of the beast.

Count Teleki, in his successful three years’ expedition in Central Africa, also used .577 rifles against elephants, buffaloes and rhinoceros with great effect, although he preferred his 8-bore (shooting 10 drs., and a short conical bullet) for big game, finding that at close quarters a knockdown blow was absolutely necessary. The question of the rival bores for such game as tiger, bear, &c., will probably never be settled, as so much depends upon the capabilities of the shooter, the class of country he is in, and the style of shooting, whether in a howdah or on foot, &c.; but it may be taken generally that for dangerous game it is always as well to be on the safe side and to use as powerful a weapon (in moderation) as you can conveniently handle.

Figs. 13 and 14.—Blocks of soft .577 bullets cut out of tigers by Sir Samuel Baker

In Africa, where animals of the same species as are met with in India appear to require much more killing than they do in the latter country, the .577 firing a solid hardened bullet and 6 drs. of powder must always be a most useful weapon. For lion, the largest kind of deer, &c., it is all that is wanted, and even for elephants it is a fairly effective rifle.

For sport in India, when the sportsman is limited to one rifle, a .500 Express, shooting a charge of 5 drs. of powder and a long bullet, and capable of also firing, when required, the shorter bullet and 4¼ drs. for the lighter kinds of game, will probably be found the most useful all-round weapon.

If, in the first instance, the barrels of a .500 Express are properly constructed for shooting the two kinds of cartridges, good shooting may be made with both, with the same sighting; and a most useful arrangement this will prove to be, the heavy cartridge being very deadly for all game found in India, with the exception of the pachydermatous animals, while for the deer tribe and for practice the lighter charge is all sufficient. Perhaps the most useful battery on a small scale for India is a .450 Express for deer, and a 12- or 16-bore Paradox, which does well as a shot-gun, and is also most effective as a rifle.

Ball-Guns.—One of the advantages which the ball-gun has over the ordinary rifle is its lightness and handiness compared with the latter, but the serious drawback to its wide use was, in the first place, that it would fire spherical bullets only, and consequently lacked penetration; and, in the second, that it gave but irregular shooting, except at very short ranges. This state of things has been completely reversed by the introduction of the ‘Paradox’ gun, the invention of Colonel Fosbery, V.C. In the ‘Paradox’ all the advantages connected with the lightness and handiness of a gun have been retained, while great accuracy when fired as a rifle with a smashing conical bullet has been added.

Since Colonel Fosbery’s invention was brought to the notice of sportsmen, the ‘Colindian’ and other systems of ball-guns have been introduced.

The result has been quite a revolution in the manufacture of weapons for use against game of all kinds, from the larger kind of deer up to elephants.

Take, for example, the 12-bore ‘Paradox.’ This weapon has all the advantages of quickness and handiness of mounting to the shoulder, so essential in snap-shooting, and yet fires a conical bullet (see fig. 15), hollow or solid, up to a hundred yards or more with the accuracy of a good Express. For all practical purposes, and with all game up to and including tiger or bear, a ‘Paradox’ weighing from 7 to 7½ lbs. has all the necessary qualities of a 10-lb. rifle, and has, moreover, the handiness of a 12-bore shot-gun, discharging shot quite as well as a good cylinder or modified choke. The man who uses a ‘Paradox’ need not take any other gun, a saving in the size of one’s battery worthy of consideration; but perhaps the strongest argument in favour of this weapon is that the man who has much snap-shooting to do (from a howdah, for instance) is much more likely to be successful when handling the gun he uses every day and often than he would be if trying to make snap-shots with an ordinary rifle, used rarely by comparison, and perhaps firing so heavy a charge as to make practice with it ‘no joke.’

Fig. 15.—12-bore ‘Paradox’ bullets

Hollow point

Cross cut

Colonel Fosbery has succeeded in perfecting the ‘Paradox’ system for large bores, such as 10 and 8, and in 1891 one of the latter weapons when tested before the editor of ‘The Field,’ with the full charge of 10 drs. of powder, and a hardened conical solid bullet at 50 yards range, made the extraordinary diagram in six consecutive shots into a space 1¼ in. by 2½ ins. (shown in fig. 16), beating all the records of big rifles at the ‘Field’ trials.

Fig. 16

It should be only a matter of time for weapons made upon this principle to supersede large-bore rifles for big game shooting. Everything is in their favour. An 8-bore ‘Paradox’ weighs some 2 to 3 lbs. less than an 8-bore rifle, and mounts to the shoulder with the handiness of a gun. The accuracy of the ‘Paradox’ is greater than that of an 8-bore rifle, the recoil less (as the bullet passes freely up the barrel, instead of having to cut its way through severe rifling, the ‘Paradox’ being rifled at the muzzle only), and the velocity or striking force is superior.

Fig. 17.—Diagram of 8-bore ‘Paradox’ bullet

Several of these weapons (8- and 10-bores) have already been tried upon elephant, buffalo, &c., in Africa and India, with the most satisfactory results.

Small Bores for Elephant Shooting.—No doubt some sportsmen have been successful in bagging elephants and other big game with .450-bore rifles, firing a moderate charge of about 3½ drs. of powder and a long solid bullet, such rifles giving great penetration, but no shock to the animal unless a vital part is reached. If the game be found in fairly open country, so that accurate shooting can be made, this weapon may answer in the hands of a good shot; but in most parts, and in grass country, particularly where an animal has frequently to be shot at very close quarters, and where the chances of being able to make a run for it are very much restricted, one would much prefer to rely upon the paralysing blow given by an 8- or 10-bore loaded with a heavy charge of powder and a conical bullet; in fact, even the admirers of the .450 warn sportsmen that such rifles are useful under certain conditions only, and this warning is absolutely necessary, several fatal accidents having taken place through sportsmen having misread or not properly appreciated the accounts of the shooting made with these small weapons and the circumstances under which they may judiciously be used.

Systems of Actions for Rifles.—Different kinds of ‘actions’ are constantly being invented for double-barrelled rifles, but very few, if any, have the sterling qualities of the old double-grip lever, especially when used for rifles shooting heavy charges. No doubt snap-actions of various kinds are made which are sufficiently sound to stand the strain of the charges fired, especially if the ‘body’ be long and deep, but none of them have the binding down power of the grip lever, which is really a kind of screw-grip. Another point in favour of the grip lever is that, should there be a piece of cap or other obstruction between the action and the barrels, the grip lever will have sufficient power to force the action to close and allow the rifle to be fired; and the same thing applies when a very tight cartridge, or one with somewhat too thick a rim, requires to be forced home. Now, under the same circumstances, a rifle with a snap action could not be closed at all, or, at all events, only with great difficulty and with unusual force, because all spring bolt systems require that the barrels should close up freely upon the action before the bolt can move into its proper position for fastening down the barrel.

For small bores such as are used for deer stalking, &c., the hammerless system has some advantages; but there are objections to these actions for weapons intended for foreign sport, and these objections apply more particularly when big game rifles are in question. Most sportsmen are fairly well acquainted with the construction of the ordinary hammer gun fitted with rebounding locks, but very few know anything of the internal arrangements of the hammerless system, and there is no doubt that the internal arrangements of the latter are more likely to get out of order when subjected to the wear and tear and the rough usage of a shooting expedition than those of the former, to say nothing of their being more easily affected by sand, rust, &c. They are also less readily taken to pieces and cleaned.

Too much care cannot be given to the selection of a battery, the minutest details of the weapons, and the ammunition for them, and yet it is a curious fact that sportsmen frequently spend much time and money over their general outfit, and take but little heed about their weapons, upon which their sport, and possibly their lives, may depend.

In ordering a battery, choose the best rifles you can afford to pay for. The first expense is likely to appear heavy to those who can see little difference between the expensive rifle of a high-class maker and those supplied of a cheaper kind, but very little experience will be needed to prove that the best is the cheapest in the end.

Few sportsmen know the amount of money, care, and skill that has to be spent upon a double rifle which is the best of its kind and a really accurate weapon; that is to say, a double rifle which has its barrels so perfectly adjusted that even a skilled shot cannot tell the shooting of one barrel from that of the other. Great care has to be taken in the manufacture of all the parts, for the failure of a striker or a spring may mean serious or even fatal results to the shooter when after dangerous game; and this work has to be paid for.

The workmen employed on best rifle work are skilled men, and can always command high wages. In some of the cheaper kinds of double-barrelled rifles one barrel frequently shoots some inches away from the other, rendering it impossible for the sportsman to make good practice even at a target, much less at game.

Great strides in the accuracy and adjustment of double rifles have been made during the last ten years. It is impossible here to say exactly what diagrams one should be fairly entitled to expect, so much depends upon the type of rifle required; but perhaps as good a guide as any is to take the diagrams made by the winning rifles at the trials of sporting rifles before the editor of the ‘Field.’ For an ordinary Express it may be accepted that a double .450 firing ten shots, right and left barrel alternately, making a 4-inch group, viz. all the ten shots in a 4-inch square, is a very fine shooting weapon, and that one putting all its ten shots into a 6-inch at a hundred yards is quite up to the average.

Do not depend upon diagrams shown as the record of the shooting of a rifle. The only satisfactory plan is to go to the maker’s grounds and see the rifle fired, to fire it yourself, or, if that is not convenient, get a competent friend to go and see the diagrams made. Then, again, it is very desirable to have the sights cut to suit your own style of shooting, for it is not at all unusual for two good marksmen firing the same rifle to make a considerable difference in elevation on the target at, say, 100 yards range.

Recoil Heelplate.—It is not a bad plan to have recoil heelplates fitted to all rifles from .450 to 4 bores. They save the shoulder very much when firing large charges. See that the rubber is properly smoothed and varnished, so as to get rid of the clinging feeling these heelplates otherwise have.

Spare Weapons.—In going for any length of time upon a sporting expedition, it is always well to have reserve rifles which should be as nearly as possible duplicates of those in the regular battery in weight, mount, sighting, &c., so that no difference is noticed by the sportsman should he have to fall back upon his reserve. You may never want them, but if, when you are in the game district, hundreds of miles up country, you smash or injure the rifle you are depending upon, you will then fully appreciate the advantage of having a reserve. It is a very easy thing to break the stock of or otherwise damage a rifle, or it may even be lost, and if you have no others to fall back upon the sporting trip must be spoiled, or at any rate seriously hampered.

A fair battery for an expedition to Africa would be a pair of 8- or 10-bore rifles or ‘Paradox’ guns, shooting 8 to 10 drs. of powder; a pair of .500 bore, 5 drs. solid ball rifles, one .577 and a 12-bore shot or ‘Paradox’ gun. Also a .400 or a .450 single-rifle sighted up to 500 yards would be found very useful in many parts.

Spare limbs should always be taken, viz. extra hammers, mainsprings, tumbler pins, and foresights, and lessons should be taken from an experienced gunmaker in taking weapons to pieces and putting them together again properly. Turnscrews, such as working gunmakers use, should be specially ordered, and not the slight and nearly useless tools usually found in rifle and gun cases. These are made by the gross, and are generally well-nigh worthless. Do not fail to have a very powerful screw-driver to take out the breech-pin, which is always very firmly screwed up.

With large bores and all rifles that have very much recoil insist upon having the front trigger thick and well rounded, to prevent its cutting the forefinger when firing the left barrel. It is a very good plan to have the front trigger hinged or hung quite loose, so as to give way to the finger. Also see that the left trigger pulls at least 6 lbs., to prevent both barrels being fired together. There is no objection to having both locks of such weapons made with a fairly heavy pull off; the fact being that when a rifle weighing 12 or 13 lbs. is being handled a 6 or 7 lb. pull does not feel heavier than a 4 lb. pull does in an ordinary shot gun. See that all your rifle stocks are made of tough strong wood, and that the grasp or handle is left sufficiently thick to give a good hold to the right hand. It is also a very good plan to have the hand of the stock strengthened by having the strap of the action made so as to extend its full length and come over the comb. This plan was first suggested by Sir Samuel Baker, and there can be no doubt but that it very considerably strengthens the stock in its weakest part.

Try your cartridges in the chambers of your rifle or gun before starting for the day’s shooting, and carefully discard all that will not go into the weapon freely and allow the action to be closed with ease. It is desirable to have cartridge-correctors made the exact size of the chambers of each weapon.

Rebounding Locks.—Many sportsmen think that when the hammer is at the rebound or half-cock it is in a safe position, but sometimes it is quite the reverse. This is because some rifles and shot-guns are made with the face of the hammers too close to the end of the strikers; when this is so, it will be found that, should the hammer be pulled up nearly to full cock and then let down again (without touching the trigger), there is sufficient ‘give,’ or ‘spring,’ in the parts of the lock to allow the hammer to just reach and to ‘flick’ the striker hard enough to fire the rifle. The danger of this defect must be obvious. The face of the hammer when pushed forward as far as it will go (without the trigger being pulled) should be well away from the end of the striker. If there is any doubt as to whether there is sufficient space or not, hold a flat piece of metal or card against the face of the action, lift the hammers nearly to full-cock, and then release them; if the metal or card be marked by the end of the striker, it is evidence that the space between the hammer and striker is not sufficient. This should not be done often, as it has a tendency to injure the end of the scear of the lock.

Fig. 18.—Illustration of adaptation to Sir Samuel Baker’s .577 rifle

Stocks, Loops, Stops, Cases.—In ordinary rifles do not have the stocks made the same shape as in your guns. Most sportsmen miss birds by shooting under them, but with a rifle more game is missed by being shot over. It is desirable to have the stocks of rifles made a quarter of an inch more bent than those of guns, and in heavy bores even half an inch extra will be found an advantage in shooting, to say nothing of saving the shooter’s face from being punished by the recoil. Also remember that as you increase the weight of your rifle you must decrease the length of your stock.

When loops are attached to rifles for the purpose of enabling you to use slings, it is desirable to have flat ones, thus—

Fig. 19

and not rings or swivels, which always rattle, and may disturb game. The above form has the further advantage of being stronger than the others. Always refuse to allow the gunmaker to fit stops to the hammers of any weapons intended for use against dangerous game. You may at a critical moment forget that the locks are bolted, or the bolts may have got loose and may have slipped into the hammers without your knowledge.

For rough shooting, especially in damp climates, have your rifles constructed for solid brass cases, or those covered with a thin coating of brass. These are less likely to stick in the chambers, and are not so easily damaged as the paper ones. Have your cartridges done up in small tins, hermetically sealed, packing a few of each kind you are likely to use in a separate tin, say fifty in each package. In this way you will be able to keep the bulk of your ammunition weather-proof. The contents of each tin should be stamped on the outside.

It is a useful plan to have loose-fitting flannel bags made for the barrels and stock of each weapon.

Perhaps the most convenient form of rifle case is ‘The Shikari’:

Fig. 20.—‘The Shikari’ rifle case

See that your case is made of strong sole leather, so as to be fairly rigid and capable of resisting pressure; for real rough work there is nothing better than oak covered with leather.

Rifle Sights.—No absolute rule can be laid down as to the best form of sights for sporting purposes. Generally speaking, the wider and the shallower the V in the backsight the better for snap-shooting, but beyond a certain point this shape makes it difficult to ensure taking the centre of the sight. The silver line or the ivory pyramid with which the standard is frequently inlaid very much assists in getting the centre quickly.

Fig. 21.

Fig. 22.

A very good form of backsight is a modification of the style frequently used in German rifles, viz. a wide shallow V having a small rounded nick and a fine line down the centre (see fig. 21).

A sloping standard has the advantage of showing up the silver line, but in a bright light this has a tendency to ‘blurr’ and prevent a fine bead being taken. It is as well under these circumstances to black the standard, and upon occasions the foresight; this may be done very simply by smoking them with a wax match. Foresights should be let in from the front and fixed with a small screw, so that they can easily be removed and a different form of sight inserted when required.

A spare iron foresight and two or three ivory ones should be fitted to each rifle.

A very useful and convenient form of night sight is an ordinary iron one having at the rear end a small disc covered with white enamel or luminous paint (see fig. 22), and so arranged that this disc can, when required, be raised in front of the ordinary bead. If properly constructed and placed at the correct angle, it can be seen well when the ordinary sight would be quite invisible.

Telescope sights are now made with elevating screws, which enable the necessary elevations to be quickly obtained. For stalking and deliberate shots the telescope is most useful, but it is necessary to have the eye-piece fitted on a spring slide and made sufficiently large to prevent injury to the shooter’s eye in case of the recoil being heavy; but these sights for rifles firing heavy charges cannot be recommended.

Many sportsmen complain that with Express rifles (in particular), and not infrequently with other rifles, they shoot over their game at short ranges, an error which they attribute to the ‘high sighting’ of their rifles. Sometimes this explanation of their shooting over their game is the correct one; but frequently the error is caused by the shooter, when firing a snap-shot at an animal moving across him at a short range, taking a very full foresight, not having sufficient time to get his eye down to the level of the backsight, and draw as fine a bead as he would have done had he taken a deliberate shot.

But no doubt some rifles are ‘over-sighted,’ and if so it is partly the fault of the gunmakers and partly the fault of the sportsmen themselves, who insist upon gunmakers trying for the impossible. It is not an uncommon thing to hear a sportsman say, ‘Oh, my rifle has a flat trajectory up to 200 yards,’ the truth being that the rifle in question has been sighted to shoot correctly at 200 yards, but the bullet at the highest point in its trajectory (i.e. at about 110 yards from the muzzle) will probably have risen from four to eight inches (according to the velocity of the bullet) above the line of aim.

It is best to have an Express rifle made with the first leaf or ‘standard’ sighted for not over 150 yards, and if this is properly done, no misses from over-sighting need be made between thirty and 150 yards.

Again, it is within the experience of most rifle-shots that it is exceedingly difficult to make good shooting when firing at game very much below the shooter (ibex down hill for instance). This difficulty is often accounted for by a theory that in shots of this kind the bullet is less acted upon by the forces of gravity than in ordinary horizontal shots; but in reality the difference in the fall of the bullet at 150 yards in downhill shots at an angle of 45 degrees and in horizontal shots at the same range is very slight.

Still sportsmen find in practice that they have to aim three to six inches below the part which they wish to hit, to ensure success in these downhill shots.

In this case the cause of errors in elevation is the great difficulty there is in getting the head down to the stock so as to properly align the foresight with the bottom of the notch or V of the backsight.

The sportsman can easily test this theory for himself by putting any ordinary rifle to his shoulder in a room, aiming first at some object considerably above his head, and then at some point or object upon the floor. Anyone who does this will find that in shooting at the object above him it is easy enough to align the sights upon it, that by bending the neck and lowering the head the sights can be accurately aligned upon any object on a level with the shoulder, but that there is very considerable difficulty in getting the eye down to properly align the sights when the object aimed at is upon the floor. In fact, if the stock of the rifle is fairly straight it cannot be done. Both these cases of over-shooting come from the same cause; in the first ‘hurry’ has induced the shooter to forget to set his head down properly on to the stock, in the second his own build and his rifle’s make it very hard for him to do so. The same principle is illustrated in rabbit shooting with a fowling-piece at short ranges. Unless using a gun with a good bend to the stock it is difficult to get down low enough to your rabbit crossing at say fifteen yards, so that a dozen are missed by shooting over for one that is missed by shooting under at that range.

It is as well, too, to remember that in shooting from a ‘rest’ there is always an inclination on the part of the barrels to fly upwards, and this is particularly so where the ‘rest’ is of any hard substance, a rock or a log for instance. To counteract this tendency to fly upwards, grip your rifle firmly with your left hand, and put a pad of some soft material (say, your cap) between your rifle and your rest.

Assuming that any rifle-shot knows the danger of pulling as opposed to pressing the trigger, that he will be careful to see that his foresight neither gets bent nor shifted, that he does not get buck fever, and can judge distance with approximate accuracy, there seems to be only one other hint worth giving, and that only to those who find a difficulty in seeing the backsight clearly; those, that is, to whom it appears blurred and misty.

These sportsmen should have their rifles arranged with the backsight not less than seven or nine inches from the breech, since the further off from the eye it is, the more clearly defined it becomes; but of course there is a limit to the distance at which the backsight can be put from the eye, since the closer the backsight is to the foresight the greater the angle of error.

It is sometimes even desirable to have the barrels made of extra length to allow of the backsight being put further from the breech end, but long barrels are unhandy on horseback and in thick timber.

Note.—It may be added that these notes have been submitted for criticism and comment to experienced practical sportsmen, including Mr. F. C. Selous, Col. James Baker, and Mr. Edward Ross.

Mr. Selous wrote, ‘As far as my experience goes, I agree with what he says.’

Col. James Baker stated that, after perusing the chapter with his friend Mr. Edward Ross, they both of them fully concurred in the views expressed, and had nothing to alter or to add.—C. P.-W.

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CHAPTER XV
HINTS ON TAXIDERMY, ETC

By Clive Phillipps-Wolley

That ‘the reward lies not in the prize but in the race we run’ is probably more true of sport than of any other pursuit, and yet even in big game shooting there are prizes to strive after which serve at any rate to remind the winners of the races they ran to obtain them. To the man who has won them fairly, the mighty antlers and fierce masks which hang in his hall or study are treasures beyond price. As to the men who buy such trophies, they are not of our guild, nor is it easy to comprehend them or their motives.

When the light is waning and the flames from a wood fire cover the walls of a hunter’s den with quaint shadows of the spolia opima of the chase, it is easy to explain to a kindred spirit the value set upon these hardly-earned treasures. To some they may be mere dry bones or hideous mummies; but out of them and their shadows the tired man, dozing by his hearth, can call up pictures from the deep primeval forest, the sheer snow mountains, or sweet and wild wind-swept upland; pictures such as no artist ever painted or poet fancied. Each head is to that dreamer a key to some locker in his memory. He has but to look at those antlers in the firelight, and the past comes back vivid and glorious, aglow with the colours of an Indian summer, or bright with the blossoms of an Alpine spring, mellow with the beauty distance lends, and painted by the strong happy hand of youth.

If age and feebleness come, shall there be no satisfaction to the old hunter in remembering the ibex he outclimbed, the stag whose senses were not keen enough to detect the stealthy approach of those now clumsy feet tottering to their rest; the grim foe, tiger or grizzly, upon whom his worn-out eyes once gazed without blenching, measuring the shot calmly, upon the success of which hung his life or the beast’s?

When the light wanes

More than all the pleasures which the rich man feels as he surveys his Murillos or his Raphaels are the hunter’s, as his eyes wander over his antlered walls. He shot the beasts whose spoils are round him, and in the doing of it scenes were graven on his memory which can never be effaced; mental and physical qualities which, but for these silent witnesses, Age the doubter would persuade him that he never possessed, were tried and not found wanting.

But what can bought heads be to the buyer? Furniture for his rooms perhaps, and, even so, misleading; for if a house is to be worth anything, it should represent the tastes and life of the man who lives in it. As a rule, it is long odds that the owners of bought trophies cannot so much as remember the shape of the beasts whose horns they hang up, much less have they any associations connected with them. At the best, they are but costly rubbish; unfortunately they are worse than that. The demand for antlers and sheep’s horns insures a supply being secured in some way, and so it happens that in Canada to-day every up-country trader has been supplied with a printed list of the prices which will be paid for trophies, according to the number of inches they measure round the base or the length and span of the antlers.

In one trader’s house which I know there are nearly a hundred magnificent sheep’s heads waiting for a purchaser, most of which have been brought in by Stony Indians, whom no law can touch for shooting in season or out of season.

The damage done by this head-hunting is twofold: first, to the sportsman, whom it will eventually deprive of his game; secondly, to the country, as tending to rob it of the attractions which it possesses for a class which brings a great deal of money into it. A fair sheep’s head may be bought for twenty-five dollars, but many a hundred pounds of good English money has before now been distributed amongst the natives and traders of British Columbia in the attempt to obtain such a head by fair shooting. No doubt efforts have been made by the legislature to protect the game; but in those countries to which I have had access I have found that, though the laws were good enough, they were rendered useless through lack of men to enforce them.

In Canada no game laws can ever be of much avail as long as the Indian is allowed the privileges which he at present enjoys.

But the principal business of this chapter is to instruct the hunter in the best methods of preserving his trophies when fairly won, until such time as he can hand them over to one of our excellent practical taxidermists at home. In nine cases out of ten, the head is all that a man cares to preserve, and those who are wise will not cumber their houses with too many even of these with the masks on. In spite of infinite pains, moth and dust will corrupt the most carefully guarded collections. However, if you want to mount the head with skin and all complete, let your first care be to sketch or photograph it in profile before the skinner’s knife has touched it, in order that the man who sets up the trophy may have some idea of what it looked like in life.

If the hunter cannot sketch decently, a kodak is a good substitute for the pencil, or the proportions and various bumps and inequalities in the outline may be accurately preserved by laying the head upon a sheet of paper and tracing its outline with a simple instrument, consisting of two pieces of metal four or five inches in length, set at right angles to one another, with a socket at the angle into which a lead pencil is fixed, so that the point projects just far enough to make a mark upon the paper, when, with the lower side upon the paper and the upright side against the head, an outline of the profile is taken. Outlines or photographs should be made as soon after death as possible, before the muscles have time to sink and lose their natural prominence.

In skinning a horned head proceed as follows:—

Slit the back of the neck up the middle to a point between the horns, then make a crosscut from the base of one antler to the base of the other. This will give you a cut shaped thus, T. Now separate the skin from the skull round the base of each antler, and be careful not to cut the coat unnecessarily during the operation. Next turn the head over and begin at the other end, severing the inner side of the lips from the gums as high up as you can reach, and skinning the muzzle as far back as you can. Then peel off the whole mask from the antlers downwards to the muzzle, being specially careful not to slit the skin, either at the eyes or at the nostrils, which are the tenderest portions of it. Be careful to preserve a sufficiently long neck, and do not let your Indian or Tartar cut the beast’s throat (as he will do if you do not watch him), as nothing looks worse than a taxidermist’s stitches showing under the throat of a trophy.

If you have followed these directions, you will have preserved so far the entire lips of the animal. Now take your knife and slit the lips, separating the inner from the outer skin, and dress the cut so made thoroughly well with powdered alum. Having removed the skin from the skull, you may clean this part of the trophy, either by boiling it if you have a pot with you large enough for that operation, or if not, after whittling out the eyes, brains, and any flesh you can readily detach, you may hang it up in a tree, out of reach of coyotes to dry, until fit for packing. Before putting your skins and skulls apart to dry, mark them carefully with corresponding numbers, to prevent mistakes later on.

Should you wish, however, to skin a beast whole for mounting in some museum or elsewhere, you must proceed as directed by my friend, Mr. John Fannin, curator of the Museum of British Columbia, whose directions I have slightly altered to suit my purpose, and inserted below.

Turn the beast on to his back and make cut 1, from the point of the breastbone along the centre of the belly to the root of the tail, taking care only to cut through the skin, and not into the intestines. A few pieces of fine brush, laid on the inside of the skin as you peel it off, serve to protect the skin from any blood which may escape from the bullet wounds or elsewhere during the operation of skinning.

Next, make a cut from the hoof of each foreleg to the upper end of cut 1, making the incision down the hind part of each foreleg. Make a cut from the hoof of each hind leg, along the hinder part of it to the lower end of cut 1. Now skin round the legs; sever the leg bones at the knee and hock joints, leaving these bones with the hoofs attached to the skin, but with the skin freed down to the hoofs. Now skin the animal in the ordinary manner, using the edge and not the point of your knife, and on reaching the neck make the T shaped cut described above, along the top of the neck and between the antlers. This will allow the skin to be removed entirely from the head; but before proceeding with the head the skin should be removed from the body as far as the head, and the head severed at the neck joint.

Having washed any blood off the hair and detached every fragment of meat or fat which you can get off the skin, stretch it out upon the ground in some airy spot where it can dry naturally, unaffected by sun or fire. Dress the skin with powdered alum, or failing that with wood ashes, and don’t peg it out. When prepared in a solution of soda by the taxidermist at home, the alum-dried skin will become as pliable as kid and will resume its natural proportions, and these should satisfy any honest hunter.

The methods recommended in this chapter are of course only for preserving trophies in the field. All trophies should be sent home for final preparation as soon as possible, either prepared with alum and packed dry, or in a tub of pickle composed of alum and salt in the proportion of two-thirds of the former to one-third of the latter.

Some men make a practice of carrying a saw with them to divide antlers and skulls for greater convenience in packing, sawing the skull right through from crest to nose; but though trophies are undoubtedly somewhat easier to pack in this way, I do not recommend it, as a very heavy wapiti head of mine so treated is constantly annoying me now by breaking away from the rivets which should hold it, to come thundering upon the ground.

Wapiti head

1, 2, and 3 indicate the brow, bay, and tray antlers respectively; 4, indicates the line along which a head should be measured for length; 5, the line along which to measure for span; 6, where to measure for girth.

In sending skins home from temperate regions I have never found it necessary to use any preservative against insects other than the powdered alum with which the skins are dressed; but in hot climates more elaborate precautions are necessary, and a liberal dose of spirits of turpentine should be applied externally from time to time.

An application of spirits of turpentine put on with a liberal hand, and brushed in, the way of the hair, with a dandy brush at spring-time, will go a long way towards saving trophies from the ravages of moth.

A covering of fine glazed gauze, made like a nosebag, is useful as a protection to heads left stored in an unused room.

Here it may be convenient to set out the ordinary systems of measuring game trophies amongst English sportsmen.

Skins are measured from the snout to the tip of the tail, and from side to side under the forearms.

There is a system of measuring bear skins upon the American continent which may have given rise to some errors—to wit, measuring from the ‘heel to the snout.’

In measuring the heads of sheep, ibex, and such like, the chief points are the girth of the horns at the base, and the length of each of them from base to point measured along the outside edge of the curve.

In measuring stags’ heads the points to note are: (1) the number of points or tines, (2) the length of the horn measured from the skull along the outside curve of the beam to the tip of the longest tine, (3) the greatest width between the horns, and (4) the circumference of the beam between the bay and the tray points. The diagram on p. 419 illustrates these measurements, indicates the points named, and displays the normal growth of tines in a wapiti head.

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A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BIG GAME SHOOTING, etc.

Since it seems impossible that any one man should have a thoroughly comprehensive knowledge of all forms of sport in any given district, it has been thought well to give here a short list of the best books known to the present writer upon most of the topics dealt with in these pages, in order that those specially interested may see at a glance where to turn for further information. There are, of course, a vast number of books written upon sport in different parts of the globe; but it is hoped that those quoted below will be found to cover most of the ground. Where opinions vary it is left to the reader to compare evidence, and judge for himself.

This seems an appropriate opportunity for acknowledging, in as brief a space as possible, but as heartily as can be conveyed by written words, the indebtedness of those employed upon these volumes for the invaluable assistance rendered by a host of friends too numerous for special mention, for information given, and photographs sent. It is hoped that the use made of their contributions will be a sufficient reward for the trouble they have taken.

Books recommended for perusal

Africa
Anderson, C. J.	Notes of Travel in South Africa. 1875.
”	The Okavango River. 1861.
Baker, Sir Samuel W.	The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia. 1867.
”	The Albert N’yanza.
”	Wild Beasts and their Ways.
Baldwin, W. C.	African Hunting from Natal to the Zambesi.1863.
Bourke (Lord Mayo).	Sport in Abyssinia.
Cumming, R. Gordon.	Five Years of a Hunter’s Life in SouthAfrica. 1850.
Harris, Capt. C.	Wild Sports of South Africa. 1844.
Le Vaillant.	Voyages, Chasses, Excursions en Afrique. 1869.
Selous, F. C.	A Hunter’s Wanderings. 1881.
”	Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa. 1893.
Willoughby, Sir John.	East Africa and its Big Game.
North America
Baker, Sir Samuel W.	Wild Beasts and their Ways. 1890.
Buxton, E. N.	Short Stalks.
Caton.	Antelope and Deer of America.
Dodge, Colonel R. J.	The Hunting Grounds of the Great West.
Dunraven, Lord.	The Great Divide.
Pike, W.	Barren Grounds of Northern Canada.
Phillipps-Wolley, C.	A Sportsman’s Eden.
Roosevelt, Theodore.	The Hunting Trips of a Ranchman.
Rowan.	Emigrant and Sportsman in Canada.
Van Dyke.	The Still Hunter.
Williamson, A.	Sport and Photography in the Rocky Mountains. 1880.
South America
Kennedy, W. R.	Sporting Sketches in South America. 1892.
The Arctic Regions
Lamont, J.	Seasons with the Sea-Horses. 1861.
”	Yachting in the Arctic Seas. 1876.
Caucasus
Phillipps-Wolley, C.	Sport in the Crimea and Caucasus.
”	Savage Svânetia.
Ceylon
Baker, Sir S. W.	Rifle and Hound in Ceylon. 1854.
India and Thibet
Baldwin, J. H.	Large and Small Game of Bengal. 1876.
Forsyth, J.	Highlands of Central India. 1871.
Kinloch, Colonel.	Large Game Shooting in Thibet, the Himalayas,and Northern India.
McIntyre, D.	Hindu Koh: Wild Sport in the Himalayas.1889.
Rice.	Indian Game. 1884.
Sanderson, G. P.	Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts ofIndia. 1878.
Sterndale, R. A.	Natural History of the Mammalia of Indiaand Ceylon. 1884.
Northern Europe
Lloyd.	Field Sports of Northern Europe. 1830.
”	Scandinavian Adventures. 1854.
Spain and Portugal
Chapman, Abel, and Buck, W. J.	Wild Spain. 1892.
Sardinia
Buxton, E. N.	Short Stalks.[27]
Tyrol
Baillie-Grohman, W. A.	Tyrol and the Tyrolese. 1875.
Taxidermy, &c.
H. C. A. J.	The Sportsman’s Vade Mecum. (Field Office) 1891.
Lord, W. B., and Baines, T.	Shifts and Expedients of Camp Life. 1871.
Ward, Rowland.	Sportsman’s Handbook to Practical Collecting.1882.
”	Horn Measurements and Weights of the Great Game of the World. 1892.

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