sixteen pounds, and four double-barrelled rifles, No. 10 weighing each
fifteen pounds. Smooth-bores I count for nothing, although I have
frequently used them.

So much for guns. It may therefore be summed up that the proper battery
for Ceylon shooting would be four large-bored double-barrelled rifles,
say from No. 10 to No. 12 in size, but all to be the same bore, so as to
prevent confusion in loading. Persons may suit their own fancy as to the
weight of their guns, bearing in mind that single barrels are very
useless things.

Next to the `Rifle' in the order of description comes the 'Hound.'

The `elk' is his acknowledged game, and an account of this animal's size
and strength will prove the necessity of a superior breed of hound.

The `elk' is a Ceylon blunder and a misnomer. The animal thus called is
a `samber deer,' well known in India as the largest of all Asiatic deer.

A buck in his prime will stand fourteen hands high at the shoulder, and
will weigh 600 pounds, live weight. He is in colour dark brown, with a
fine mane of coarse bristly hair of six inches in length; the rest of
his body is covered with the same coarse hair of about two inches in
length. I have a pair of antlers in my possession that are thirteen
inches round the burr, and the same size beneath the first branch, and
three feet four inches in length; this, however, is a very unusual size.

The elk has seldom more than six points to his antlers. The low-country
elk are much larger than those on the highlands; the latter are seldom
more than from twelve to thirteen hands high; and of course their weight