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.

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

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.

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:

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

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.