indian Game Author:William Rice Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: OHAPTER III. BLACK BUCK SHOOTING. Antelope Stalking—Cullum, Or Cranes—The Gazelle—The Nil Gai, o Blue Bull—A Kifle Best. (Plate III. illustrates to the s... more »portsman one of the most pleasiny sigJtis in India,— A herd of " Black Buck" as the " Indian-Antelope " are commonly called.) "black Buck" are a most graceful kind of deer, and are to be found on nearly all the wide open plains of the Bombay Presidency, especially where the ground is of a sandy or rocky nature, and where the black soil so favourable for cotton cultivation predominates. They are to be met with in either small herds of twenty or so, or occasionally in vast numbers of three or four hundred together; but the usual size of a herd is about forty or fifty. Sometimes several herds join together, and then they seem in countless numbers; but this is rare, and appears to take place only once in the year. On the few occasions I have noticed this packing it was just before the rains set in. A small herd of about twenty deer will always have one fine black buck as leader and master, with perhaps a younger one or two, either just turning black, or of a rich chestnut colour. The rest are does and fawns in all stages of growth; but it is only the very young kids that are to be remarked as such, for the rest soon run up to the average size and height, so as not to be easily distinguished from the older full-grown does. A very fine old black buck would stand about two feet nine inches high, but they vary a good deal according to localityin size as well as in the length and spread of their horns. The does are rather smaller, of a light fawn colour, with a pale yellow streak along the flanks, white underneath the belly and inside the legs. The quite young kids are of a darker red fawn colour, with softer or more fl...« less