DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12673#0342
LIFE OUTSIDE OOTY.
321
rudest tools and remarkable neatness. The Hindoos,
however, do not patronise bison-hunting, as they
consider the beast a wild species of their sacred
animal.
The word " ibex," like the " jungle sheep "* of
the Neilgherries, is a misnomer : the denominated
being the Capra Caucasica, not the Capra ibex of
Cuvier. It is to these hills what the chamois is to
the Alps, and the izzard to the Pyrenees. If you
are sportsman enough to like difficulty and danger,
incurred for nothing's sake, you will think well of
ibex-hunting. In the first place you have to find
your game, and to find it also in some place where
it can be approached when alive, and secured when
dead. The senses of these wild goats are extra-
ordinarily acute, and often, after many hours of toil,
the disappointed pursuer is informed by the peculiar
whistling noise which they make when alarmed,
that, warned of his proximity — probably by the
wind — they have moved off to safer quarters.
Secondly, you must hit them—hard, too ; otherwise
* This "jungle sheep" is the Cervus porcinus, the hog-deer
or barking-deer of Upper India, which abounds in every shikar-
gah of delectable Scinde. In Sanscrit it is called the Preushat
(" sprinkling," in allusion to its spotted hide) ; in Hindostani,
Parha; and in Persian, the Kotah-pacheh, or " short hoof."
p 5
321
rudest tools and remarkable neatness. The Hindoos,
however, do not patronise bison-hunting, as they
consider the beast a wild species of their sacred
animal.
The word " ibex," like the " jungle sheep "* of
the Neilgherries, is a misnomer : the denominated
being the Capra Caucasica, not the Capra ibex of
Cuvier. It is to these hills what the chamois is to
the Alps, and the izzard to the Pyrenees. If you
are sportsman enough to like difficulty and danger,
incurred for nothing's sake, you will think well of
ibex-hunting. In the first place you have to find
your game, and to find it also in some place where
it can be approached when alive, and secured when
dead. The senses of these wild goats are extra-
ordinarily acute, and often, after many hours of toil,
the disappointed pursuer is informed by the peculiar
whistling noise which they make when alarmed,
that, warned of his proximity — probably by the
wind — they have moved off to safer quarters.
Secondly, you must hit them—hard, too ; otherwise
* This "jungle sheep" is the Cervus porcinus, the hog-deer
or barking-deer of Upper India, which abounds in every shikar-
gah of delectable Scinde. In Sanscrit it is called the Preushat
(" sprinkling," in allusion to its spotted hide) ; in Hindostani,
Parha; and in Persian, the Kotah-pacheh, or " short hoof."
p 5