The Taprobanian (2.1887)

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THE TAPROBANIAN.

[August, 1887.

rocks that rise out of the forest, in such numbers,
that a load of horns may be collected by an adven-
turous hunter during a single day—of course in the
wilder tracts where game is little persecuted. I
myself often find six or seven horns in a day when
exploring these rocks for ancient caves and ruins,
and my guides find more than I do. In these tracts
most of the shallow caves into which the elk love to
retire were anciently cave dwellings or temples.
In one case I startled a huge buck from his lair on
a broken effigy of the recumbent Buda, and in
another, one of my guides shot one under similar
circumstances. It would seem that the elk, secure
from the attack of leopards from above, feels little
dread of their open advance. It is significant that
I never saw or heard of a doe elk frequenting such
localities; in every case the deer that made his lair
in them was a fine buck. In such caves, in the
wilder tracts, we often found six or seven horns,
shed at different stages and in different years. We
only twice found the skeleton of an elk that had
died or been killed in the cave, and on each occasion
the bones were found near a shooting ground, and
believed by the Vaedda guides with me to be those
of wounded animals that had taken refuge in the
cave, and died from their wounds.
A. —It is clear then that the adult male Rusa
aristotelis seeks out rocky ground when the horns
are about to be shed, and that the old bucks con-
tinue to haunt certain caves and lairs on such
ground throughout the year.
B. —It is rare to find there the horns of a very
young buck—in fact I only twice met with such ;
and the doe seems not to retire to the rocks at all.
G.—The caves frequented are shallow ones, vary-
ing from ten to twenty feet wide, and from ten to a
hundred feet long, with one side open to the air.
D.—The rain-water, dashing over the rocks,
usually falls free of these, and, percolating in little
streams between fallen boulders, forms little caverns
on its course, and ultimately reaches the level forest
as a stream.
If instead of being gneiss, the rocks of Ceylon had
been of a formation easily worn into caverns, it follows
that a periodical scaling of the rock that sheltered
the caves, would in time allow a stream to sweep
through the old bed of the cave, and such a stream
would carry down with it, into any caverns or
crevices it formed, the accumulated horns of the
deer, the broken bricks and pottery of the ruins in
the cave and the rarer bones of animals that had
died from wounds in the cave.
In Ceylon caves which have been scoured out in
this manner, both those used as temples or left as
bare shelters, constantly occur.
The nature of the rock, however, does not allow
the torrent to form those curious caves and grottoes
so common in Europe, and in which bone breccia

occur. It is desirable especially to note that the
spotted deer, axis maculata, roams in herds within
a few hundred yards of these rocks, but in no case
had my guides, who were professional horn collectors
and hunters, ever met with an axis horn in a cave
or among rocks. I also never saw one there, nor
even the track of a wanderer. The horns of the
axis are collected in less number, because scattered
over a wide extent, and are found in the forest they
especially haunt, usually on the edge of open glades.
We must conclude the Rusa is a rocky ground
species, which in long ages has extended its range
to the plains. The axis is a lowland species which
has never accustomed itself to rocks, and though
it skirts them at a few yards’ distance, never ascends
their declivities. In other words, the rusa shows
greater power of adaptation than its congener, and
is therefore presumably the older type, not yet
specialised in its habits.
To Palaeontologists it is noteworthy that the Rusa
voluntarily seeks caves and rocky ground. That
the bucks only do so. That bones rarely, but horns
abundantly, occur. I deduce as follows. If a
deposit from a Ceylon cave, frequented for ages by
this deer, were swept out by a torrent and preserved
as a breccia, the deduction fairly suggesting itself,
from the numerous traces of horns and the few
traces of bones, would be that both sexes had horns,
and that some carnivorous beast had dragged the deer
to its lair, chewed up the bones, and rejected only
the horns. Both deductions would be fallacious.
It may be useful to note that horns shed on such
surfaces bleach and dry up within three years, decay
within six, and seldom could be traced after ten
years.
I should perhaps add that wild animals seem never
to die naturally in caves, but their bones are found
in dense thickets close to water-pools, or on the
banks of rivers.
In all the caves I have visited, I have only found
three skeletons of bears, one of a leopard, and two of
elk. My guides, who are wonderfully accurate and
astute in the forester’s craft, in each case at once
declared them to be the remains of animals wounded
at the neighbouring drinking places watched by
hunters during the dry season. In each case they
were animals in the prime of life, not one being of
special age.
Editor.

The Fire-arms of the ancient Indians.
Much discussion has arisen with regard to the an-
cient agni-asthra, which by some persons have even
been considered an early form of gun. This hesi-
tation should never have arisen, as a fair acquaintance
with ancient history would quite remove any doubt
as to the class of instruments used.