e manes of the Snow Mountain
serows; the horns were almost smooth. Getting this specimen was one of the
lucky chances which sometimes come to a sportsman, for one might hunt for
weeks in the same place without ever seeing another serow, as the jungle is
exceedingly dense and the cliffs so steep that it is impossible to walk
except in a few spots. The animal had been feeding on the new grass just at
the edge of the heavy cover and probably had been sleeping under a bush
when she was disturbed.

Besides mammals and birds we made a fairly good collection of reptiles and
lizards at Hui-yao, but in all other parts of the province which we visited
they were exceedingly scarce. In fact, I have never been in a place where
there were so few reptiles and batrachians. We obtained only one species of
poisonous snake here. It was a small green viper which we sometimes saw
coiled on a low bush watching mouse holes in the grass. Several species of
nonpoisonous snakes were more common but were nowhere really abundant.

We left Hui-yao the day after I killed the serow for a village called
Wa-tien where there was a report of sambur. None of us had any real hope of
finding the huge deer after our former unsuccessful hunts, but we camped in
the early afternoon on an open hilltop five miles from Wa-tien where the
natives assured us the animals often came to eat the young rice during the
night.

We engaged four men with three dogs as hunters, but awoke to find a dense
fog blanketing the valley and mountains. It was not until half past nine
that the gray mist yielded to the sun and left the hills clear enough for
us to hunt. We climbed a wooded ridge directly behind the camp and skirted
the edge of a heavily forested ravine which the men wished to drive.

Heller took a position in a bean field while I climbed to a sharp ridge
above and beyond him. In less than half an hour the dogs began to yelp in
an uncertain way. I saw one of them running down hill, nose to the ground,
and a few seconds later Heller fired twice in quick succession. Two sambur
had skirted the edge of the wood less than one hundred yards away, but he
had missed with both shots.

The trail led into a deep ravine filled with dense underbrush. In a few
moments the dogs began to yelp again and, while Heller remained on the
hillside to watch the open fields, I followed the hounds along the creek
bed. Suddenly the whiplike crack of his Savage 250-300 rifle sounded five
times i