At times the silence is broken by a loud, metallic, bell-like cry, very like the yodel you hear in the Alps.  You hear it rise sharp and distinct, ‘Looralei!’ and as suddenly cease.  This is the cry of the kookoor gh[=e]t, a bird not unlike a small pheasant, with a reddish-brown back and a fawn-coloured breast.  The sherra is another green parrot, a little larger than the putsoogee, but not so beautifully coloured.

There is generally a green, slime-covered, sluggish stream in all these forests, its channel choked with rotting leaves and decaying vegetable matter.  The water should never be drunk until it has been boiled and filtered.  At intervals the stream opens out and forms a clear rush-fringed pool, and the trees receding on either bank leave a lovely grassy glade, where the deer and nilghau come to drink.  On the glassy bosom of the pool in the centre, fine duck, mallard, and teal, can frequently be found, and the rushes round the margin are to a certainty good for a couple of brace of snipe.

Sometimes on a withered branch overhanging the stream, you can see perched the ahur, or great black fish-hawk.  It has a grating, discordant cry, which it utters at intervals as it sits pluming its black feathers above the pool.  The dark ibis and the ubiquitous paddy-bird are of course also found here; and where the land is low and marshy, and the stream crawls along through several channels, you are sure to come across a couple of red-headed sarus, serpent birds, a crane, and a solitary heron.  The moosahernee is a black and white bird, I fancy a sort of ibis, and is good eating.  The dokahur is another fine big bird, black body and white wings, and as its name (derived from dokha, a shell) implies, it is the shell-gatherer, or snail-eater, and gives good shooting.

When you have determined to beat the forest, you first get your coolies and villagers assembled, and send them some mile or two miles ahead, under charge of some of the head men, to beat the jungle towards you, while you look out for a likely spot, shady, concealed, and cool, where you wait with your guns till the game is driven up to you.  The whole arrangements are generally made, of course under your own supervision, by your Shekarry, or gamekeeper, as I suppose you might call him.  He is generally a thin, wiry, silent man, well versed in all the lore of the woods, acquainted with the name, appearance, and habits of every bird and beast in the forest.  He knows their haunts and when they are to be found at home.  He will track a wounded deer like a bloodhound, and can tell the signs and almost impalpable evidences of an animal’s whereabouts, the knowledge of which goes to make up the genuine hunter.

When all is still around, and only the distant shouts of the beaters fall faintly at intervals on the ear, his keen hearing detects the light patter of hoof or paw on the crisp, withered leaves.  His hawk-like glance can pick out from the deepest shade the sleek coat or hide of the leopard or the deer; and even before the animal has come in sight, his senses tell him whether it is young or old, whether it is alarmed, or walking in blind confidence.  In fact, I have known a good shekarry tell you exactly what animal is coming, whether bear, leopard, fox, deer, pig, or monkey.