Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M. Krishnan : A Jungle Mystery : The Sunday Statesman : 19 April 2015
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A JUNGLE MYSTERY

" THE first time I saw a Sambar hind with parallel scars down the flank, I did not give the matter another thought. Three days later, in the same block of forest, I saw her again; only after she had tripped daintily away, pausing momentarily to give me a snapshot before disappearing behind a clump of bamboo, did I remember a detail -- the Sambar I had first seen had the scars on the right flank, but this one had the marks on the left side and, moreover, had only two lines scored on her skin.

A week later I saw a third hind with the same kind of scars on the flank. Undoubtedly this was a different animal from the two seen earlier; neither of those had the raw, red sore patch on the throat that most adult Sambar in most places have, but this one had a glaring throat patch (incidentally, no definite and conclusive explanation of the cause of these sores seems to have been provided so far). All three hinds had well-shrunk, healed scars with the skin showing dark and hairless along the lacerations.

That evening I discussed the mystery with Bomma, the Kurubar tracker, and a local officer. After all, they belonged to the place and might know its secrets.

Beyond clearing his throat noisily, Bomma had nothing to say. The officer, however, made up for this by providing the choice of two explanations. First, he said the scars might have been caused by the spiky giant bamboo that abounded the jungle. Then he pointed out that this was not unlikely. The slender, villainous, steel-tough hooks of the bamboo scratch the human skin but not the hide of Deer; anyway they wouldn't have left behind a set of short, longitudinal, parallel scars; the bamboo could be dangerous all right and split a man right through if he rushes blindly through a clump, but it claws neither man nor beast. So what if it wasn't bamboo? He then said it was a Stag.

I had noticed the marks on the Sambar seemed weird but, significantly, no stag had inflicted those marks on them. Stags are quite rough in their courting, and often furrowed their mates with tips of their antlers but what he was suggesting was fantastic and I didn't even have to say that it would be a complaisant hind, indeed, that would wait for a stag to inflict three or four "furrows" along her side.

From the first, I wondered if those marks on the Sambar were the results of a predator's claws -- a Panther or a Tiger. But how come no less than three hinds in that limited block carried those healed scars? An immature or incapacitated Tiger, perhaps, sojourning in that forest some two months previously?

The next morning Bomma and I came across a big Stag that carried the same kind of claw marks, only this time the wound was fresh and bleeding, high up though, almost on the rump. It was obvious that the Stag was in pain but it bolted at the sight of us.

I don't think a Panther, particularly the smallish kind of Panther found in those parts, could have attempted to tackle the Stag. There was a Tiger in the jungle, a three-quarters grown tiger, whose lean body and proportionately big feet and head betrayed his immaturity even in the brief glimpse I had him. But if he was the cause of these claw marks, how was it that only the Sambar of the forest carried these raking scars and not the Chital, or Pig or other animals that were more common there?"

-M.Krishnan

This was first published on 31 May 1959 in The Sunday Statesman

#The photograph of a Sambar hind not reproduced here.
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Note:
Madam Shyamala's photograph of Sambar posted on 03-03-2015 under 'Mammals' column may be of much interest to the viewers.
-SaktiWild

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