The number of deer killed annually by leopards is larger than might be supposed. Assuming that there are 1,660 leopards in the Island of all ages and sexes (see page 127), of which half are adults, and that each adult kills one deer every other month (not too low an estimate if it is considered that a leopard's food mainly consists of monkeys, mouse-deer, hares and other small animals), then 4,980 deer will have been destroyed by them annually. Of these a not inconsiderable number will be bucks. Natives frequently pick up in the jungle the antlers of bucks which have met their deaths in this way.

The principal reason, however, for the great decrease of game is simply the scarcity of water in the low-country during the five dry months of the year. The immense forests could easily support ten times as many head of game as are now to be found in them, and if the water supply was in reasonable proportion to the cover, the natives could not exercise their destructive method of shooting, and the process of extermination now going on would be almost impossible. The professional hunters might, of course, take to stalking deer in European fashion, and though their brown colour and naked feet would be of great advantage to them in creeping up to game undetected, they would not be able to shoot a tithe of the deer they now kill. It is net only the actual shooting done by natives at water-holes which destroys the game. It is probable that a good many animals, especially fawns, die every year practically of thirst, being unable to get water, every drinking-place for miles being watched by natives in ambush. In exceptionally dry years the mortality from this cause must be considerable. At such times the poor creatures are harried to death, day and night, as their sufferings force them to come out into the open and drink in broad daylight, when they are shot down with ease by the merciless villagers.

Though difficult it is not impossible to make a rough estimate of the number of deer of all kinds in our forests. Some members of the Ceylon Game Protection Society recently came to the conclusion, after inspecting a number of cut and shed horns lying at the Colombo Custom House, and from figures given to them by the Principal Collector of Customs, as to the quantity of horns exported, that an average of 120,000 sambhur and cheetul are killed every year.

A little consideration will shew that there must be something wrong with this estimate. If correct, it proves a great deal too much, for it shews that, in spite of the immense destruction of game, both in the past and at present, our forests still teem with deer to an incredible extent. As these forests cover about 12,000 square miles, including tanks, fields, villages, etc, it follows that" ten deer, on an average, are killed every year, in every square mile of the low-country, and that there must be 360,000 deer in all, or thirty, on an average, in every square mile, to stand such a drain. This last conclusion is arrived at by assuming that deer are being killed out at a rate so much higher than the birth rate, that the cervine race in the Island will be extinct in thirty years ; that the proportion of the sexes is 20% of adult bucks, 30% of adult does, and 50% of young of both sexes, and that every adult doe has one fawn annually. No man who has fagged unsuccessfully after cheetul, moining after morning, or tramped high forest after sambhur, will be easily convinced that there are, on an average, thirty of these two kinds of deer in every 640 acres of the low-country. The probability is that the figures given to the Ceylon Game Protection Society were erroneous, perhaps including the horns of cattle and buffaloes, though this is hard to believe.

A more reasonable estimate may be arrived at in the following way. Assuming that each of the 14,844 guns, estimated to be in the hands of native hunters, accounts, during the thirty days of moonlight in each year, for two deer killed, and adding 4,980 killed by leopards, and 1,332 which die of wounds, thirst or accidents, a total will be got of 36,000 deer destroyed annuali. A small calculation, made with the data given in the last paragraph, will shew that, if so many are killed, there must now be 108,000 deer of all kinds in the low-country, or nine for every square mile.

Of these 108,000, it may be roughly estimated that 60,000 are cheetul, 36,000 are sambhur, and 12,000 are muntjak, or five cheetul, three sambhur, and one muntjak in every square mile.

With regard to elephants, the probability is that for a number of years past their number has been about stationary. Ever since the great destruction of these Jiuge creatures, from forty to fifty years ago, when hundreds were killed for the sake of the Government reward, their increase has been more or less balanced by the number captured by the Pannikkans or shot by sportsmen, or native cultivators watching their fields and chênas.

During the last thirty-seven years an average number of 62 elephants, caught by the Pannikkans, have been exported from the Island. (See Appendix B.) As the methods of these men are most destructive to life, it may be assumed that only one out of three elephants caught survives, which will account for 124 more. They frequently fire at elephants to drive them off or to repel attacks, and it is probable that at least 24 are killed every year in this way. As villagers frequently fire at elephants trespassing on cultivated land, which afterwards die in the forest, it may be estimated that 40 are so killed annually. Probably not more than 25 elephants on an average are killed by sportsmen every year, and a similar number, perhaps, meet with accidental death or are killed in fighting. This gives a total of 300 elephants, on an average, which have been killed or caught in Ceylon annually in recent years.

Assuming that the death-rate and birth-rate about balance themselves, it follows, as female elephants breed only once in about two years, that there must be 600 adult cows in the Island. If we then take the proportions of the adult bulls and cows and the immature young of both sexes to be 20%, 30%, and 50% respectively, it will be seen that there must be about 2,000 elephants all told in our forests. This would give a herd or family of five for every thirty square miles, which would seem probable enough, seeing that there are vast tracts in which scarcely an elephant is to be found.