Something scuttling over the fallen leaves in the undergrowth draws my attention and I raise my rifle, only to lower it when, with a frightened squawk, a jungle hen flutters up out of the bushes and flies away among the trees. These birds are the progenitors of our ordinary barnyard fowl, and so like them that once close to Santrabari, when out with a shot-gun, I let several hens pass me unscathed, under the impression that they were fowls belonging to our _mahouts_. And when in the heart of the forest I first heard the cocks crowing I thought that we were near a village. In Northern India these jungle cocks are beautifully plumaged with red, yellow, and dark green feathers and long tails. In Southern India they are speckled black and white with a little yellow. When in the forest villages the tame roosters crow, their challenge is taken up and repeated by the wild ones in the jungle around. And the natives often peg out a cock and surround him with snares to catch the wild birds which come to attack him. But now Bechan suddenly stops Khartoum and whispers excitedly, "_Sambhur nur!_" "A stag." For a moment I can see nothing in the tangled bit of jungle he points to. Then suddenly the deepened blackness of a patch of shadow reveals itself as the dark hide of a _sambhur_ stag. We have almost passed him. He is to my right rear; and I cannot swing round far enough to fire from the right shoulder. But I bring up the rifle rapidly to my left and press the trigger. As the recoil of the heavy .470 high-velocity weapon almost knocks me back flat on the pad I hear a crash in the brushwood. "_Shabash! Luga!_ (Well done! Hit!") cries Bechan and slips from the neck of the elephant to the ground. Drawing his knife he dashes into the jungle. For, being a Mussulman, he is anxious to reach the stricken stag and _hallal_ it; that is, let blood by cutting its throat while there is life in it. For the Mohammedan religion enjoins that an animal is only lawful food if the blood has run before its death. This is borrowed from the Mosaic Law and is really a hygienic precaution against long-dead carrion being eaten.