__________________________________________________ _____________________________________
COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M. Krishnan : Barking Deer : The Sunday Statesman : 29 November 2015
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________

THE MUNTJAC

"THE MUNTJAC is a creature of many aliases. It is the Muntjac (from its Malayan name), the Barking Deer, the Rib-faced Deer and the "Jungle Sheep" of early South Indian sportsmen -- the last derived from its Tamil name "kelai aadu", meaning "the sheep or goat that creates a din". The loud, repeated alarm call of this little deer, and the ridges down its face that end in the curious, pedicellate, hooked horn of the male, have earned for it these many descriptive names. And none of them is strictly accurate.

To my mind, the word "bark" suggests a sharp, accurate sound. When Byron wrote,

Tis sweet to hear the watch
dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouth'd
welcome as
We draw near home;

Tis sweet to know there is an
eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter
When we come,

he was rather hard pressed for a rhyme for "mark" -- the peculiarly American construction, "there is an eye will mark", further testifies to the poetic strain.

Actually, the Barking Deer's alarm is neither a bark nor a deep-mouthed bay. Years ago, I saw a crossbred Newfoundland dog (belonging to the Captain of a passing ship) at a harbour, and that huge, panting beast has somehow developed laryngitis in the humid heat: its hoarse, long-drawn voice was the nearest I have heared in any animal to the Barking Deer's.

Some sheep, too, have similar voices, but the Deer's call, though not sharp, is never the quavering "blah" of a hoarse-voiced sheep; it has an unmistakable 'note of alarm' in it, in spite of its bronchial depth of tone, a querulous anxiety in the abrupt ending. I remember the first time I heard this call, when what alarmed the deer was my near presence -- it stayed hidden in bush cover and sounded its inexorable alarm, till the Gaur I was stalking with a camera had bolted, and till I had removed myself far from the place.

Like the swearing of the Langur and the Bonnet Macaque, the deer's call is an alarm widely understood by all denizens of the jungle, and is not sounded unless the presence of a predator or some suspicious-looking stranger excites the alarmist. Other Deer calls are not always warnings -- the "pook" of the Sambar and the "shrill bark" of the Chital, for example. But when anything in the jungle hears the hoarse, repeated bronchial bark of the Muntjac, it takes warning at once.

Another curious sound produced by this deer, a series of quick clicks like the sound of castanets, has been the subject of much speculation. I believe it is generally accepted now that this is only the usual coughing alarm call broken up into small, consecutive bits by the jerky action of the deer's gateway. I have heard this only once, from too far away to have any opinion.

Unlike most deer, the Muntjac is usually solitary; occasionally it may be found in a pair. It is an active beast and spends much time on its feet, but keeps more or less to its own beat of the forest. I have watched it many times, late in the morning and early in the evening, moving quietly through the undergrowth, inconspicuous in spite of the bright chestnut of its coat. The feet are trim and small, though the limbs are thick and well-muscled on top, and the animal moves with a high-stepping action even when slinking along, setting down its dainty hooves vertically on the forest floor, covered with dry leaves, without rustling anything. And many times I have seen it lifts its muzzle up to an overhanging bough, wrap an improbably long tongue around a leafy twig and strip the leaves clean by pulling its head away.

This little deer is perhaps the choosiest feeder of its tribe -- and its diet is probably more omnivorous than that of other deer. Even when I have been able to keep it in sight for an hour, it never stopped long at any place, tripping along from bush to bush, picking a leaf here and a bud there with fastidious selectiveness."

-M.Krishnan


This was first published on 16 April 1961 in The Sunday Statesman

# One beautiful drawing of the Deer is not reproduced here