There can be no doubt that tigers, like men, are often very undecided how to act, and it would be interesting if we could penetrate their state of mind. Shall I attack, or shall I do nothing? and in the end, after long deliberation, the tiger will determine on doing nothing, and walk off. Of his state of mind the following is an instance. On one occasion I left my pony on the side of a hill just outside the forest, and went for a stalk over the mountain above. I could see nothing, and thought it would be well to take a seat and wait in case any game might turn up. I had not been seated more than a few minutes when one of my people, pointing downward, said, "There is a tiger," and we could see him at the foot of the hill about quarter of a mile away, walking steadily across a piece of open land to the forest beyond. Just as he disappeared my horse-keeper came up alone, and evidently in a most agitated state, and no wonder, for we had no sooner got out of his sight when, a tiger appeared from the jungle and lay down on the ground just above the pony and crouched. The horse-keeper had another man with him, but he not unnaturally said that he was afraid to come and tell us, as he thought that there was safety in numbers, and that the tiger might attack the pony if it was left with only one man. The tiger must have thus remained in a state of low doubt for at least half an hour. Finally he got up and left them, and, from the direction he took, was evidently the identical tiger which we had seen from the hill top.

Tigers, like wolves and other animals, form plans, communicate them to their companions, and conjointly carry them out. A friend of mine was once the subject of an excellent instance of this. He was out stalking one day, and with his glass was scanning the country carefully, when he made out a long way off, in a piece of open grassland which was surrounded by forest, three tigers looking in his direction. They evidently saw that there was something on the hillside, but the distance was, for them, too great to make out what. After steadily looking at him some time the tigers evidently formed their plan of operations, and plunged into the forest towards him. The tigers had taken my friend and his man for game of some kind, and had determined on a united stalk and drive, and, when they appeared, two remained at the edge of the jungle, while the third made a circuit evidently with the view of coming upon the supposed game from above. But presently they discovered their mistake and went off.

These forest tigers are rarely dangerous to man unless attacked, and in my part of the country they never are so. However, there is no rule without an exception, and when making this assertion to some natives in my neighbourhood many years ago, one of them said, "I am not so sure about that. A tiger ate an aunt of mine not far from here some years ago." But that is the only instance I ever heard of in my neighbourhood, and even by tradition there were no instances of deaths from tigers, and it is also remarkable how in some cases tigers, when there is plenty of game, live for years near cattle without touching them. I was particularly struck with this in the case of a family who lived quite isolated at the crests of the Ghauts, and the head of it told me that, though tigers were often about they never touched his cattle. There is an amusing story told in "My Indian Journal"[20] (a charming book which everyone should read who is interested in India) of a native who was ready enough it appears to track down tigers to be shot by others, but who by no means wished that any of his family should interfere. On one occasion Colonel Campbell found him belabouring his son with a stout bamboo, and on inquiry learned that the said son had killed a tiger. The father said it was all very well for people who lived in the open country, but with him the case was quite different, as he lived on sociable terms with the tigers in the jungle, had never injured them nor they him, and while there was peace between them he could go amongst them without fear, but now that his rascally son had picked a quarrel with them, there was no knowing where the feud might end.

I have mentioned a case of tigers not interfering with cattle when there was plenty of game, but I should add that this was many years ago, when the natives had not so many guns as they have now. The rice-fields have been abandoned and the house of course deserted, and of recent years the tigers have changed their ways, for, ten years ago, I killed a tigress close to the site of the abandoned house, in the neighbourhood of which it had been killing cattle.

I have said that forest tigers are rarely dangerous to man, and by that I mean the tigers inhabiting the long range of forests stretching along the south-western side of India at varying distances from the sea, but in the interior of Mysore very dangerous man-eaters have existed, and I have been shown places which people made up parties to cross. One man-eater, at least—for it was assumed that the deaths were the work of one animal—killed, I am informed on good authority, about 500 people. Two tigers were killed at one time, and after that the slaughter of human beings ceased, though it was never ascertained which was the culprit. There is no man-eater at present in Mysore. Mr. Sanderson says that bold man-eaters have been known to enter a village and carry off a victim from the first open hut. The boldest attempt I ever knew of was mentioned to me by my Nilgiri planter friend, and it occurred in this way. In the middle of the night there were loud cries of "Tiger!" from a hut near his house which was occupied by some of his people. He always kept a loaded gun near him at night, and at once rushed out and fired, when two men came up to the bungalow and declared that a tiger had begun to claw the thatch off the roof of the hut in order to get at them. This was alarming to the planter, as, if proved, many of his people might have left the place, and he told the men to sleep in his veranda, and that he would see in the morning if their story was true. He then went to bed and rose very early the following morning, before anyone was about, and found that the story was quite true, and saw the tracks of the tiger. These he carefully obliterated, and then went back to bed. Then when he rose at his usual time he roused the men and asked to be shown the track of the tiger. This of course they could not do, and he laughed off the whole story, and treated it as a fanciful illusion. I find many stories in sporting books of the great courage and determination often shown by natives in connection with tigers, but my Nilgiri planter friend told me one which was really astonishing. A tiger one day had carried off a Toda cattle herd, and his friend or relative was determined to recover the body, and was about to proceed single-handed and unarmed into the jungle with this view. My friend saw that he could not prevent him, and as he did not like to let him to go in alone, went with him. They went in accordingly, and presently heard the tiger crunching the bones of his unfortunate victim, but when the tiger heard them approaching he retired, and the Toda recovered what was left of the body. There can be no doubt, however, that the death of one of a party does exercise a chilling effect on the zeal of the natives, or at least on a considerable proportion of them, but after all this is not surprising, as I have found a similar coldness coming over my own proceedings when a tiger has retorted with effect on his pursuers. On the occasion I am now alluding to an unfortunate report had spread that a tiger I had wounded had left the jungle in which we found him, and whither he had retreated. I had wounded the tiger in the evening, and we went to look him up next morning, and the beaters, influenced no doubt by the report in question, went into the jungle in a body in a careless manner, and without sending men up trees to keep a look out ahead.

The tiger waited till the whole party was within springing distance, and then with a tremendous roar which I clearly heard at my post some way off, charged, and buried his deadly fangs in the back of an unfortunate Hindoo peasant who was leading the way. The poor fellow was carried out of the jungle in an evidently dying state, and a caste dispute arose over him, the particulars of which I have given in my chapter on caste. After doing what we could for him we placed him on a rough litter and he was carried to the rear. I confess that after such an exhibition of temper on the part of the tiger and the nature of the jungle I, being Europeanly speaking single-handed, was not so very comfortable at the idea of approaching him, but luckily a toddyman who had run up a tree (these men are wonderful climbers) when the tiger charged, and was afraid for some time to come down, now emerged from the jungle, and reported that he could see the tiger from the tree he had climbed into. This of course much simplified matters, and I at once proceeded into the jungle, but only about ten people, mostly my own followers, cared to accompany me. As it happened, we after all ran no risk whatever, as the tiger was dead, though he was lying with his head on his paws in such a life-like position that we fired a shot into him to make sure. When we were skinning him the poor man expired. In the same jungle, I think about a year afterwards, an English visitor at my house wounded a tiger, which went into one of those reedy and cactus-grown bottoms which make tiger shooting on foot so dangerous. I then declared that none of my people should go into this, and that they might return the next day and see if the tiger was dead (by no means an absolutely safe proceeding even then as we have seen). Much to my amusement a lean toddy drawer of mine, an excellent shikari, went a few yards into the swampy ground, got on to a small boulder of rock, squatted down, took out his betel bag, threw some betel into his mouth preparatory to chewing, and then held out his long skinny arm and forefinger and said, "Look! A tiger made a meal of a man close to this last year. Let everyone therefore be careful and get up into trees, and mind what they are about." The next day the tiger was found dead quite close to the rock he had been squatting on. A most remarkable instance of courage on the part of a native occurred when a brother planter of mine was out tiger shooting on the Ghauts to the north of my abode. A tiger flew at a Hindoo peasant—a first-rate plucky sportsman, and as the tiger charged, the man struck at it with his hacking knife (a formidable weapon in the hands of a man who knows how to use it, and used to cut underwood, and thick boughs of trees), with the result that the tiger's skull was split open and the animal killed on the spot. The native was thrown backwards with great force, and his head came in contact with a stone. He got up, and by this time was surrounded by the people, when, holding out his hand, he said, "Look here," and then paused. Everyone expected some remark about the tiger, but, amidst general laughter—for the natives have a keen sense of humour—he continued, "There will be a bump on my head to-morrow as big as a cocoanut." And now, as we have heard so much of the courage of man, it is time that the dogs should have their turn, and I will conclude these reminiscences with an account of how a dog saved the life of the brother planter to whom I have just alluded. I was so much interested in the story that I wrote down the particulars in my diary at the time and read them over to my informant to make sure they were right. I give the account verbatim as I took it down at the time.

Mr. A. told me that he once wounded a tiger which afterwards sprang on him, knocked him down, and seized him by the hand and arm. With Mr. A. was a large dog, half mastiff and half polygar (a savage and rare native breed), which at once attacked the tiger, and diverted its attention from Mr. A. After driving off the dog the tiger again returned to Mr. A. and commenced to worry him, but was again attacked by the dog. The dog was thus driven off about three or four times by the tiger. The tiger was all this time losing strength from his wounds, and the last time he returned to Mr. A., died on him. The dog was uninjured. Now comes the most curious and interesting part of the story.

The dog, which was not affectionate generally, and indifferent to being noticed, belonged to Mr. A.'s brother, and had previously taken no interest in anyone but his master, but after this event, he refused to go home with his master, and stuck closely to the wounded man, and when some carbolic was applied by Mr. A.'s brother which caused pain to the wound, the dog began to growl and showed signs of displeasure. The dog would not allow anyone to come near Mr. A. except his own special servant, and lay under the bed with his nose sticking out, and keeping close guard. When Mr. A. was carried to the doctor some thirty-five miles away the dog went too, and on the doctor applying carbolic, and setting the bones, which caused pain, the dog at once seized the doctor by the leg. (Evidently looking on him as tiger No. 2, I suppose.) In about three months Mr. A. was quite cured, and after that the dog lost all interest in him, and returned to his master; and if he met Mr. A. by chance, merely acknowledged him by the faintest wag of his tail. A year afterwards this dog, happening to meet the doctor, whom he had not met since, at once flew at him and seized him by the trousers.

One great danger attending the bite of a tiger is that of blood-poisoning from the frequently foul state of the animal's jaws, and it is, of course, of great consequence to cleanse wounds as soon as possible and apply carbolic. An engineer in the northern part of Mysore a good many years ago was bitten on the thigh by a tiger, and so little hurt that he walked home and went on with his business as usual, but a few days after he was suddenly taken ill and very soon died. Of course there may happen to be no foul matter about the tiger's mouth, and a Hindoo peasant wounded when I was out with no less than thirteen wounds in the arms—several of them double wounds as the man had thrust his locked arms into the tiger's mouth to keep him off—completely recovered. He goes by the nickname of Tiger Linga Gouda, and I always make a point of sending for him when I visit Mysore. On one occasion I was showing the marks of the wounds to a lady, and said that there were thirteen wounds. "Thirteen," echoed Linga Gouda, "There were fifteen, and you have forgotten those two on the head, and I slept on your bed too," he added with an air of great satisfaction—in fact he seemed to attach more importance to that than to anything connected with the transaction. I had given him up my bed because it was a broad one, and so most convenient for resting his lacerated arms. The natives were certain that he would die, and I felt a great triumph in bringing him round. The great thing with wounds of that kind is of course to cleanse them well, and apply carbolic if you have it (I had none on this occasion) and afterwards cover the wounds with damp lint, which should be kept constantly moist by frequent applications of water. This was done in the case I have alluded to. The arms, of course, swelled greatly, and the heat arising from them was very great, hence the need for the constant application of water. The flow of blood from the arms was checked by a tourniquet.

I never but once heard of a mad tiger. This animal was made over in an inoculated condition by a friend of mine to the Garden in Bangalore. He had caught it when out tiger shooting, and, when on the way to Bangalore, he had chained it outside his tent where it was attacked and bitten by what turned out to be a mad Pariah dog.

Before concluding this chapter I must say a few words, which perhaps ought to have been said at an earlier period, as regards one of the most important points of tiger shooting—i.e., that of taking up such a position as will enable you to fire to right or left without moving your body, or rather I should say without moving it more than in a most infinitesimal degree, for, as I have previously shown, it is movement of any kind which alone readily attracts the attention of an animal. It is evident that, if you sit facing the point from which the tiger is expected, though you can readily fire at him without moving if he passes to your left (and, as has been shown, you should not fire till he is just passing you) you cannot do so if he passes to your right without turning your whole body half round in that direction—a movement which might catch the eye of the tiger. To surmount this difficulty Sir Samuel Baker has invented a small stool with a revolving top, which is no doubt air excellent thing if there is time to erect a suitable platform on which to support the stool, but it often happens that positions have to be taken up in a hurry, and that you have to sit on the fork of a branch, or on the ground behind a bush or rock, where the tiger may pass on either side. In such cases the shooter should sit facing nearly full face to the right, as he can, with hardly any perceptible movement of his body fire readily to his left, and he should instruct his man with the second gun to point with his finger in order to indicate the side on which the tiger is approaching.

In all the books I have read about tigers I have never met with an allusion to tigers purring like cats from satisfaction, but a brother planter informs me that he heard a wounded tiger, that had killed one of the natives who was following him up, purr for several minutes, as he described it, "like a thousand cats." The evening was closing in when the accident occurred and as the jungle was thick nothing could be done. On the following morning the man and the tiger were found lying dead together.

Of all sports tiger shooting affords the most lasting satisfaction, and it is especially interesting when one lives in tigerish localities where one has more leisure and opportunity for going into all the details of this delightful sport, and where a knowledge of the people and their language makes the sport so much more agreeable, and one's acquaintance with the ground enables one to take an active and intelligent part in regulating the plan of operations when a tiger has killed. Then in the case of an animal so destructive it is seldom possible to feel any commiseration, though I have done so on certainly one, or perhaps two occasions. Against many sports something may be said, but that is impossible as regards tiger shooting. The tying out of live baits may be objected to, but after all the tooth of the tiger is to be preferred to the knife of the butcher.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] G. P. Sanderson's "Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India," 1878.

[16] "Reminiscences of Life in Mysore, South Africa and Burmah." By Major-General R. S. Dobbs. London, Hatchards, Piccadilly, 1882.

[17] Vide Appendix C.

[18] "Oriental Field Sports." By Captain Thomas Williamson, London, 1807.

[19] "Tiger Shooting in India; Experiences 1850 to 1854," by William Rice, 1857.

[20] "My Indian Journal." By Colonel Walter Campbell. Edinburgh, Edmonston and Douglas, 1864.



CHAPTER V.

BEARS—PANTHERS—WILD BOARS—JUNGLE DOGS—SNAKES—JUNGLE PETS.

The Indian black bear (ursus labiatus), we are informed by Jerdon, is found throughout India and Ceylon, from Cape Comorin to the Ganges, chiefly in the hilly and jungly districts. The bear, unlike the tiger, which has sometimes five cubs, appears never to have more than two cubs, and I have not been able to hear or read of their ever having more. We have no means of knowing how often they breed, but I imagine that they must seldom do so, and that that is why they are so soon almost exterminated. As I never kept a game diary on my estate (which I now much regret), I have no idea how many have been killed from it, but I am sure we have killed a smaller number of bears than of tigers, and yet the bear is now rarely seen or heard of in my neighbourhood, while we hear as much of tigers as ever, and indeed quite recently a great deal more, for last year they were apparently more numerous than they have ever been in the tiger range of my district; and I say apparently, because, from the destruction of game, the tigers have naturally been compelled to live more upon cattle. It is alleged by the natives that the tigers kill and eat the bears. Mr. Sanderson notices this in his work, and gives one reported instance of it, but I have never known of one in my part of the country. A friend of mine, formerly in the employ of the Mysore State, told me that he knew of two cases in the North-Eastern Division, of tigers killing bears, but in neither case did they eat them. In the first case the bear and tiger had met at a watering-place, and in the second in the jungle. Mr. Ball, in his "Jungle Life in India,"[21] tells us that he once came across the remains of a bear which the natives said had been killed by a tiger, and that a native shikari had sat over the carcase with the hope of getting a shot at the tiger. We have no returns as regards bears in Mysore, but in the adjacent Bombay districts—Kanara and Belgaum—Colonel Peyton tells us, in the "Kanara Gazetteer," they are fast becoming rare, except near the Sahyadris, and even there are no longer numerous. In Belgaum, between 1840 and 1880, he tells us that no fewer than 223 bears were killed. The steady decline of the numbers of the bears is shown by the fact that 137 were killed between 1840 and 1850, 51 between 1850 and 1860, 32 between 1860 and 1870, and 3 between 1870 and 1880. In Kanara 51 bears were killed between 1856 and 1882, so we have a total then of 274 bears for these two districts alone. As regards big game, the first comers obviously have the best of it.

Colonel Peyton tells us that the bear is, of all animals, most dreaded by the natives. There can be no doubt, he says, that an untouched bear will often charge, while a tiger will rarely do so, and there are numerous instances of people having been mauled and sometimes killed by them. I imagine, though—in fact, I am sure—that this must often occur from the bear constantly keeping his head down, evidently smelling and looking for things in or on the ground. All other game animals have some motive for looking ahead and around—deer and bison for their enemies, and tigers for their prey. But the bear lives on insects and fruits, and flowers and honey, and as he is not apprehensive of being attacked by any animal, has no motive for keeping a lookout, and so does not do so. He may thus, and no doubt often does, run into a man, under the mistaken idea that the man is running into or attacking him, and then the bear, naturally, does the best he can. I can give a remarkable confirmation of this view.

One day, in a break in the monsoon, when the game lies much out of the forest, I was out in the mountains with my manager for a general stalk, when we saw, some way ahead of us, a bear walking along. We quickly formed a plan of operation, and it was arranged that I should make a circuit and get between the bear and a jungly ravine he appeared to be making for, and that my manager should follow on the track of the bear, which would thus be pretty certain to be overhauled. The bear was pottering along as bears do, and I had no difficulty in getting between him and the jungle he was approaching, and the moment I did so I advanced a little towards him. When the bear got within shooting distance—about fifty yards—I stooped down and moved a little on one side so as to get off his direct line, with the view of getting a side shot, but just as I did so he accidentally altered his route, thus bringing himself again head on to me. Then I manoeuvred again to get out of his line, but the bear also altered his line, and as by this time he was getting rather too close—i.e., about ten yards off—I stood up and took a steady shot at his head and dropped him dead. Now, strange to say, I do not believe that the bear ever saw me at all, and he could not wind me, as the south-westerly wind was blowing strongly from him to me, and yet, as the grass at that season was by no means long, he had no more difficulty in seeing me than I had in seeing him, and he probably would have walked right up to me. This instance is, I think, interesting, and goes far to explain the numerous accidents in connection with bears. Still there can be no doubt that, as Colonel Peyton says, an unwounded and untouched bear will deliberately attack people when there is no occasion for his doing so, and that too, under circumstances where no other animal would make an attack, and of this the following little incident will serve as an illustration.

On one occasion a bear was reported on a jungly hill about a mile from my bungalow, and as I was young and inexperienced then, I said that I would lie on the ground till I heard the beaters, and then stand behind a tree. I was alone, and had only a single barrelled rifle, which I laid on the ground beside me. As the cover was rather a large one, I had no reason to expect anything till I could at least hear the beaters in the distance, and I lay leaning on my elbow and thinking of I cannot now remember what, when on chancing to look up I saw a large bear standing at the edge of the jungle about twenty yards away. The moment I moved he charged, and I at once seized my rifle, sprang up and charged the bear at an angle (there was no time to fire), and made for the jungle from which he had emerged. I just missed his nose, and he followed me for a few paces as I ran towards the jungle from which he had come, which I did knowing that he would not be inclined to go in that direction. Then, having thus cleared me out of the way, he turned, and resumed his original route, and as he was disappearing into the next jungle I fired at him, but the charge must have had a discomposing effect on my shooting, for I missed the bear altogether. Now, as the beaters were far away and not within hearing, there was no occasion for the bear to have attacked me, and there was ample room for him to have altered his line. In fact, unless closely pressed by beaters, no other unwounded animal would have so acted. It will be observed that the bear, after having pursued me for a few yards, turned and went on his way, but had I not been nimble—in other words, had I been completely invested by the bear and thrown down—he might, as the natives would phrase it, have made my wife a widow. It is commonly supposed that, when making an attack, the bear stands on its hind legs, and thus gives the sportsman a good chance of killing him with a shot in the chest, but this is not my experience, and, though instances of the kind may have occurred, I should not advise the sportsman to count on any such delay in the proceedings of an attacking bear.

The preceding illustration, I may point out, affords a useful lesson. If so suddenly attacked by a wild animal that you have no time to fire, always rush towards it, and to one side, so that you may, as it were, dodge past it. This will enable you to gain ground on it, and room to turn round and fire.

I may observe that Mr. Ball, in his "Jungle Life in India," gives several instances of natives being wantonly attacked by bears, and Colonel Campbell[22] gives one remarkable instance of two bears attacking a party of his people, who were on the march through the jungle in Belgaum in charge of his horses, one of which was so severely wounded by one of the bears that the life of the horse was despaired of for some days. The Colonel was determined to be avenged on the bears, had them marked down, and, with the aid of his friends, bagged them both, but not before one of the bears had thrown down one of the party, who ran a great risk of being killed. The determination of the bear in following up his assailant was in this instance very great.

I may here observe that some little caution is required in approaching, and looking into caves, and examining the entrances for tracks of bears, and the person doing so should be fully prepared for a sudden charge out of the cave, and be ready to jump on one side. No cave should be approached with the assumption that it is not at all likely that a bear will be at home, and especial care should be taken in the case of a cave with a drop in front of it over which a person might be hurled by a bear charging suddenly out. To get a bear out of a cave is often no easy matter, and different caves require, of course, different treatment. In some cases the bear may be poked out with the aid of a long pole, and when this is done the operation is both interesting and amusing, but care must be taken to see that you have a man who understands bears, and knows by the character of the growl when the bear really means to charge out into the open, and also that the man with the stick can readily get out of the way, which he cannot do in the case of every cave. The native with a long pole, or rather stick, usually commences with a quiet nervous sort of poke, which awakes the bear out of his midday slumbers and causes him to rush at the stick with a furious growl. But this is merely a demonstration, and the experienced native does not expect a charge, though I need hardly say that he is well prepared to get out of the way. Then the native commences to poke away in a more pronounced style, and at the same time excites himself by calling in question the purity of Bruin's mother, his female relations, and even those of his remote ancestors, to all of which the bear responds by growls and rushes at the stick. At last his growls and rushes at the stick become fierce and menacing, and all of a sudden the experienced Hindoo, who by some instinctive knowledge is able to gauge the charging moment, drops the stick and scuttles out of the way, and the bear dashes headlong from the cave to be killed, or to make good his escape, as the case may be. Poking a bear out of a cave is rather a severe trial of one's nervous system, and if anyone doubts that he has only to try it for himself, as it will perhaps show the individual that we seldom rightly estimate the amount of nerve which we often expect natives to show. I think I was never more startled in my life than I was one day when I put my ramrod (it was of course in the muzzle loading days) into the very narrow mouth of a cave in which I thought there was little chance of Bruin being at home. A she-bear however was within, and all the fiercer as she had cubs, but luckily she did not charge out, and I need hardly say that I promptly drew back. Sometimes a cave may be so deep and tortuous that the bear cannot be got out with the aid of a pole, and to meet such cases I had stink balls made, as bears have very fine olfactory nerves and seem particularly to object to disagreeable smells. These balls were composed of asafoetida, pig dung, and any other offensive ingredient that suggested itself to me at the time, and made up into about the size of a cricket ball and then dried in the sun. The ball was, when required to drive a bear out of a cave, impaled on the end of a long pole and surrounded by dried grass, or any other inflammable material which was at hand, and this being ignited the pole was thrust as far as possible into the cave. This I found to be a highly successful plan, and I may mention in passing that I have met with no account in the many sporting books I have read of this being done previously. Sometimes large fires are lit in the mouth of a cave with the view of smoking a bear out, but this is rather a cruel process which I do not recommend. In some cases of peculiarly shaped and situated caves it is, however, the only practicable plan, but where adopted the bear should not be put to more inconvenience than is necessary to drive him out. A large fire should be lit at the entrance, and when the cave has got filled with smoke all the blazing fragments of wood should be removed from the entrance, and in doing this the people should talk loudly and make as much noise as possible, and afterwards retreat to a distance from the cave leaving the sportsman with his spare gun-carrier to sit just above the entrance to the cave. The bear finding that, as he erroneously supposes, every one has gone away, and being naturally desirous of quitting such uncomfortable quarters will, after a short time, come cautiously out and may thus be easily shot. It is very important to have a couple of bull-terriers when out bear shooting as they are most useful in bringing a wounded bear to bay.

In considering these remarks upon the various ways of getting bears out of caves it may be useful to show how not to attempt to get a bear out of a cave, and the connecting circumstances will also be useful to anyone who may be overtaken by a hill fire.

On one occasion many years ago news was brought in that a bear had been marked down into a small and very narrow mouthed cave on a bare hillside, and I accordingly proceeded to the spot. The whole mountain was at that time covered with long grass, and as the cave was closely surrounded by it, and the bear if poked out in the usual way would rush into the grass and thus give a bad chance to the shooter, I devised what I thought, and what at first appeared to be, an excellent plan for meeting the difficulty. This was to set fire to the whole hill just below the cave, and my theory was that, as the cave was a small one, the heat of the fire and the smoke would cause the bear to quit the cave after the fire had passed over it. The wind was, when we lit the fire, blowing from east to west and I perched myself on a pile of rocks rather above, and to the east of the bear's cave as, when leaving it, he would naturally go in a direction opposite to that of the fire, in which case he would pass within easy shot of my position. With this, distinctly original conception I was highly pleased and watched the progress of the terrific conflagration that ensued with interest and satisfaction. How it roared and leapt as it consumed the long dried grass, and how soon would the bear be likely to make its appearance! It reached the long grass around the cave and proceeded to sweep along the hill, away from me, and flying before the easterly wind. Presently there was a dead lull. A few seconds more and the whole position was reversed. I had quite forgotten that, at that season of the year, and that hour of the day, the east wind dies down, and the westerly sea breeze comes in, and in an instant I was caught in my own trap. First of all I thought I would screen myself behind one of the rocks and remain where I was, but I was of course speedily enveloped with masses of smoke, and then I thought I would get down and run; first of all, however, I peeped over the rock, but merely to perceive a terrifying mass of roaring red flames rushing towards me, and this finally determined me, and I stuffed my handkerchief into my mouth and held on. As I had of course leggings and was fully clothed I had much the best of it, but my shikari with his bare limbs got a pretty good roasting. But the fire seemed no sooner to have reached us than it was swept onwards quite away, and I was astonished at the pace it travelled, which one can have no idea of when one witnesses these conflagrations, as one usually does, from a distance. Beyond feeling as if my lungs were on fire for a day or two afterwards I experienced no ill effects from my temporary roasting, but the experience I had was quite sufficient to show me the amount of inconvenience a bear must suffer from being smoked out of his cave, and, as I have previously pointed out, no more fire should be lit at the entrance of a cave than is necessary to make it desirable for the bear to leave it, which, as I have shown, he will soon do, if the people retire to a distance. As for our bear, he probably knew far more about these hill fires and the sudden changes of wind than I did, and had not the slightest idea of coming out for some time, and I therefore had to introduce to his notice one of my stink balls, which had the effect of bringing him out. By way of a change I had intended fighting it out with the bear without firing, and told a native to attack the bear with my spear when he emerged, while I proposed, if he lodged his spear, to attack with the bayonet of my Enfield rifle. But the spear came into contact with a bone in the bear's back, and thus the point was broken off, and seeing that my man had not lodged his spear I fired and killed the bear. From my subsequent experience of the great power of the bear I am now glad that the spear was not lodged.

Bear shooting from caves I have found to be a most interesting and sometimes most entertaining and even amusing sport, while it is attended with a sufficient amount of danger for all practical purposes. You never get a laugh out of a tiger shikar, but you sometimes do in connection with bears, and the following is at once an instance in point, and will besides illustrate the danger of approaching a cave which is perhaps rarely inhabited by bears, as also the surprising promptness of the bear in action. And I say surprising, because from his shambling gait, general deliberation of movement, and the clothing of long black hair which hides the powerful form and limbs, his activity and quickness of movement when aroused is astonishing to those who have no experience of bears. But to proceed with my story.

One day, when returning from shooting in the mountains, we happened to pass a bear's cave which was rarely inhabited—at least on former occasions when we examined it we had found no traces of bears, nor had one ever been marked into it that I was able to hear of, though the cave had the reputation of being occasionally used by bears. The cave was in a beehive-shaped pile of rocks standing on, or rather projecting from, a steep hillside. From the upper side it is easily approached, but to get at the mouth of the cave you have to step down, as it were, from the roof of the beehive on to a ledge of rock about six feet wide, below which there is a drop of ten or twelve feet. From the absence of any signs of bears about the roof of the cave I assumed that the cave was as usual uninhabited, but I thought I would gratify my curiosity by looking into it, so I got down on to the ledge, and was imprudent enough to leave my guns with the people on the roof above. As there were no signs of bears on the ledge or at the entrance, I told one of the natives to go in and take a look at the cave, but he had only penetrated a few feet from the entrance, which was about five feet high, than with three furious growls a bear charged headlong, and drove the intruder out with such force that he was shot clean over the ledge, and alighting (luckily) on his side, rolled some way down the steep hillside at the bottom of the drop. Bruin then with wonderful readiness knocked down the other man, who had not presence of mind enough to get out of the way, and after inflicting a scalp wound on the back of his head, dropped over the ledge, and got off unharmed amidst several shots which were fired at him by the people above, who of course from their position could not see the bear till he had got to a considerable distance. In the confusion that had occurred amongst the people left on the roof of the cave, who were as much unprepared for a bear as I was, some one had jostled my principal shikari—a testy and at times rather troublesome old man, but a most keen sportsman—and, to the great delight of every one, his shins had in consequence been barked against a sharp piece of rock. All the sympathy that ought to have been devoted to the wounded man he diverted to himself by the tremendous fuss he made about his injured shins, and this, and the chaff he had to sustain in consequence, quite rounded off the affair, and we all went home in high good humour, and the wounded man for years afterwards used to show his ear-to-ear scar with considerable satisfaction. Some people might have objected to the escape of the bear, but I confess that I did not grudge him the victory he had earned so well, and we consoled ourselves further with the reflection that we would get the better of him next time. Before concluding the subject of bears, I may give another incident which was rather amusing, and the narration of which may be of use as illustrating one or two points which are worthy of notice, and especially the advantage of having a good dog with one.

On a mountain-side about five miles from my house is a rather large cave of considerable depth—so deep, at least, that the longest sticks would not reach to the end of it, and as we could get the bear out in no other way, I lit a large fire at the entrance, and, after some time, sent all the people away to a distance, and, with a single man to hold a second gun, sat over the mouth of the cave. The result that I anticipated soon followed, and, imagining that we had given up our project in despair, and being naturally desirous of leaving such uncomfortable quarters, Bruin presently appeared looking cautiously about. The smoke prevented my taking a very accurate shot. However, I fired, and wounded the bear somewhere in the throat, though not fatally, and he plunged into a jungly ravine close to the cave, pursued by my bull terrier, an admirable and very courageous animal, which attacked the bear, and detained him sufficiently long to give me time to run to the other side of the ravine, and so get in front of the bear. A hill-man accompanied me, armed with a general officer's sword which I had brought out—why I really forget now, for it was anything but sharp, which I now regret, as it would have been interesting to see the effect of a really sharp sword on a bear's back. The bull terrier now rejoined me, and, in company with two additional natives who had run after us, I got on a piece of rock about three feet high. The man with the sword stood on my right, and the two natives—who were unarmed—on my left, and in this order we awaited the arrival of the bear. Sore and angry, he presently emerged from the jungle at a distance of about twenty-five or thirty yards further down the slope of the hill. I fired at and hit him, and he then turned round, took a look at us, and charged. As he came on I fired my remaining shot. Then the man with the sword struck the bear a tremendous blow on the back (which I think would have stopped the bear had the sword been sharp), and in a second more old Bruin had thrown the whole of us off the rock on to the ground behind it. There we were then—four men, a wounded bear, and a bull terrier, all mixed up together. However, the man with the sword laid about him most manfully, and the bear, either not liking the situation, or being exhausted with his wounds and efforts (more likely the latter), retreated into the ravine out of which he had emerged. Into this we presently followed him, and after another shot or two he expired, and I have the skin at homo with the mark of the sword-cut on the back. It had cut through the shaggy hair, and only penetrated the skin sufficiently to leave a scar. The man who had shown so much pluck was a young farmer from the adjacent village, and I at once offered him the sword with which he had defended me. But he seemed to think he had done nothing, and positively declined it, saying that his neighbours would be jealous of his having such a fine-looking thing. I had, however, a knife made after the native fashion, and afterwards gave it to him in commemoration of the event.

In Mysore there are two kinds of panthers. One, the largest of the two, is called by the natives the Male Kiraba, or forest panther, and confines itself generally to the forest regions, while the smaller kind haunts the neighbourhood of villages. The black panther, which is of rare occurrence, is merely an offshoot of the other varieties. The panther, in consequence of its tree-climbing habits, and general aptitude for suddenly disappearing, is of all animals the most disappointing to the sportsman, so much so, indeed, that I soon gave up going out after them. Though it has great strength, and from the amazing suddenness of its movements, great means at its disposal for making successful attacks on man, it seems, unlike the tiger, bear, and wild boar, to have no confidence in its own powers, and though in one sense showing great daring by attacking dogs even when they are in the house and quite close to people, is, when attacked itself, of all animals the most cowardly—a fact which the natives are well aware of, and which is proved by the small number of people killed by panthers in proportion to the number of them accounted for. The only way of insuring success when hunting panthers is to have a small pack of country-bred dogs of so little value that when one or two of them may chance to be killed by the panther the matter is of little or no consequence. The pack will soon find the panther, and perhaps run him up a tree, and thus give the sportsman a good, or rather certain chance of killing the animal. In this way a manager of mine was very successful in bagging panthers. I have some reason to suppose that the panther, when severely wounded, sometimes feigns death, and give the following incident with the view of eliciting further information on the subject.

Two natives in my neighbourhood once sat up over a kill, and apparently killed a panther—at least it lay as if dead. They then with the aid of some villagers, who afterwards arrived on the scene of action, began to skin the panther, and the man who had wounded it took hold of the tail to stretch the body out when the panther came suddenly to life, and bit the man in the leg. One of the people present then fired at the panther, apparently killing it outright. The man, who had been only slightly bitten, then again took the animal by the tail, a proceeding which it evidently could not stand, for this time it came to life in earnest, and inflicted a number of wounds on the man at the tail. The natives then attacked it with their hacking knives, and finally put an end to it. The dresser of my estate was sent to the village, which was about six miles away, to treat the wounds, but the unfortunate man died. I may add that this is the only instance I have known of a man being killed by a panther in my neighbourhood.

I now turn to an animal which is really dangerous, and I think more daring than any animal in the jungles—the wild boar—and whatever doubts the panther has of its own powers, I feel sure that the boar can have none—in fact its action is not only daring, but at times even insulting. To be threatened and attacked in the jungle one can understand, but to be growled at and menaced while on one's own premises is intolerable. I never but once heard the deep threatening don't-come-near-me growl of the wild boar (and in the many sporting books I have read I never met with any allusion to it), and that was some years ago, within about ten or fifteen yards of my bungalow, and the incident is worth mentioning as showing the great daring and coolness of the wild boar.

One evening at about seven o'clock, and on a clear but moonless night, I went into the garden in front of my house. This is flanked by a low retaining wall some three or four feet high—a wall built to retain the soil when the ground was levelled—and below this a few bushes and plants had sprung up close to the bottom of the wall. In these I heard what I supposed to be a pariah dog gnawing a bone, and, in order to frighten it away, I quietly approached within a few yards of the spot, and made a slight noise between my lips. I was at once answered by a low deep growl, which I at first took to be the growl of a panther, and I then walked back to the bungalow and told my manager to bring a gun, telling him that there was either a large dog (which on second thoughts appeared to me most probable), or some animal gnawing a bone. We then quietly approached the spot where we could hear the gnawing going on quite plainly about five yards off. By my direction he fired into the bushes, and we then stood still and listened, and presently heard what was evidently some heavy animal walk slowly away. On the following morning I sent my most experienced shikari to the spot, and he reported that the animal was a wild boar, which had been munching the root of some plant, and the soil being gravelly, the noise we had heard proceeded from the chewing of roots and gravel together. This boar then had not only refused to desist from his proceedings when I was within five yards of him, but had even warned me, by the low growl afore mentioned, that if I came any nearer serious consequences might ensue. On the following day I assembled some natives and beat a narrow jungly ravine below my house, at a distance of about, fifty yards from it, and there came out, not the boar, but his wife with a family of five or six small pigs. She was shot by a native, and the young ones got away, but the boar either was not there, or, more probably, was too knowing to come out. He did not, however, neglect his family, but in some way best known to himself, collected them together, and went about with them, as, a day or two afterwards, he was seen with the young pigs by my manager, and their tracks were also to be seen on one of the paths in my compound, or the small inclosed park near my bungalow. This boar afterwards became very troublesome, ploughed up the beds in my rose garden at the foot of my veranda stops, and even injured a tree in the compound by tearing off the bark with his formidable tusks. But, daring though he was, he was once accidentally put to flight by a slash of an English hunting whip. The boar, it appears, was making his round one night when my manager, hearing something moving outside his bath-room, and imagining it to be a straying donkey—we keep some donkeys on the estate—rushed out with his hunting-whip, and made a tremendous slash at the animal, which turned out to be the boar, so startling him by this unexpected form of attack, that he charged up a steep bank near the house and disappeared. This boar was afterwards shot by one of my people in an adjacent jungle—at least a boar was shot, which we infer must have been the one in question, as since then my garden has not been disturbed. The boar is more dangerous to man than any animal in our jungles, and I have heard of three or four deaths caused by them in recent years in my district. The natives, however, say that, till he is wounded, the tiger is less dangerous than the boar, but that after a tiger is wounded, he is the more dangerous of the two; and I think that this is a correct view of the matter. The boar has a most remarkable power of starting at once into full speed, and that is why his attacks are so dangerous. In countries inhabited by wild boars it is very important to be always on the alert. As an illustration of this, and also of the great power of the boar, and of his sometimes attacking people without any provocation on their part, I may mention the following incident.

When I was walking round part of my plantation one morning with my manager, and we chanced to stand in a path for a few moments (I forget now for what reason), my dogs went down the hill into the coffee, and appear there to have disturbed a boar. Luckily for myself, I always keep a sharp look out, and my eye caught a glimpse of something black coming up amongst the coffee. In a single second a boar appeared in the path some twenty yards away. The path sloped downwards towards me, and at me he came, like an arrow from a bow. As there was no use in my attempting to arrest the progress of an animal of this kind, I stepped aside and let him into my manager, who, luckily for himself, was standing behind a broken off coffee tree, which stood at a sharp turn in the path some yards further on. The result was very remarkable. The boar's chest struck against the coffee tree and slightly bent it on one side. This threw the boar upwards, and, of course, broke the force of the charge, but there was still enough force left to toss my manager into an adjacent shallow pit with such violence that his ear was filled with earth. I was now seriously alarmed, as I had no weapon of any kind, but luckily the boar went on. His tusk, it appeared, had caught the manager—a man of about six feet, and thirteen stone in weight—under the armpit, but had merely torn his coat. We organized a beat the same afternoon, and killed the boar, which was suffering from an old wound, and this no doubt accounted, in some degree, for his sudden and gratuitous attack. Tigers often attack the wild boar, and there are often desperate battles between them, and well authenticated instances have been known of the boar killing the tiger. I have never met with one in my neighbourhood, though I once aided in killing a tiger which had been ripped in several places by a boar. As it is impossible in jungly districts to ride the wild boar, he is invariably shot, except when, in the monsoon rains, he is occasionally speared. At that season the wild pigs make houses, or rather shelters, for themselves by cutting with their teeth and bending over some of the underwood, and under these they repose. When such shelters are discovered, a man approaches them cautiously and drives his spear through the shelter into the boar's back. I have never seen this done, but have often heard of its being done where I lived in former days, during the rainy season.

Boar's head pickled in vinegar and garnished with onions makes a good dish, especially after harvest, when the pigs are in good condition, but, from what I have known of the habits of the wild boar, I do not think I should ever be inclined to partake of it again, and certainly not when cholera is about. A neighbour of mine told me that when he was once beating a jungle for game the natives backed out of it with great promptness, having come upon wild pigs in the act of devouring the dead bodies of some people who had died of cholera. I may mention that it was customary in former times, and doubtless is so still to some extent, to deposit the bodies of cholera victims anywhere in the jungle, instead of burying them in the ordinary way. An official of the Forest Department told me that, passing one day near the place where the carcase of an elephant lay, he had the curiosity to go and look at it. To his astonishment he found the flanks heaving as if the elephant were still alive, and while he was wondering what this could mean, two wild boars, which had tunnelled their way in, and were luxuriating on the contents of the carcase, suddenly rushed out. From what I have hitherto said it seems plain that wild boar is not a safe article of food, unless, perhaps, when, it inhabits remote jungles where foul food can rarely be met with. I have never made any measurements of wild boars, but Colonel Peyton—a first-rate authority—writing in the "Kanara Gazetteer," says that some are to be found measuring forty inches high, and six feet long.

The jungle dog (kuon rutilans) is a wolfish-looking-dog of a golden brown colour, with hair of moderate length, and a short and slightly bushy tail. It hunts in packs of seven and eight, and sometimes as many as twenty and even thirty have been reported. In my neighbourhood I have never actually known them to attack cattle or persons, but Colonel Peyton tells us, in the "Kanara Gazetteer," that they grew very bold in the 1876-77 famine, and killed great numbers of the half-starved cattle which were driven into the Kanara forests to graze, and since then a reward of 10 rupees has been paid for the destruction of each fully grown wild dog. Colonel Peyton alludes to the native idea that these dogs attack and kill tigers, but says that no instance of their having killed a tiger is known. At the same time it is, he says, a fact that the tiger will give up his kill to wild dogs, and will leave a place in which they are present in large numbers. Some years ago I beat a jungle in which a tiger had killed a bullock, and in which another tiger had on a former occasion lain up, but the tiger was not there, and a number of jungle dogs were beaten out. We afterwards found the tiger in a jungle about a mile away, and he had evidently abandoned his kill, for no other reason, apparently, than because of the presence of the dogs. An old Indian sportsman tells me of a very widespread native tradition as to the action of these dogs previous to attacking a tiger. Their belief is that the dogs first of all micturate on each others' bushy tails, and, when rushing past the tiger, whisk their tails into his eyes and thus blind him with, the objectionable fluid, after which they can attack him with comparative impunity. A forest officer informs me that the Gonds have a somewhat similar tradition, and that they believe that the dogs first of all micturate on the ground around the tiger, and that the effluvium has the effect of blinding him.[23] The late Mr. Sanderson, in his "Thirteen Years amongst the Wild Beasts of India," mentions an instance reported to him by the natives of their finding a tiger sitting up with his back to a bamboo bush, so that nothing could pass behind him, while the wild dogs were walking up and down and passing quite close to him, evidently with the view of annoying the tiger, and the position then taken up by the tiger seemed to show that he was apprehensive of an attack. From his experience of the great power of the wild dog, Mr. Sanderson entertained no doubt that they could kill a tiger, though he knows of no instance of their having done so. The old Indian sportsman above alluded to told me of a case where a tiger had been marked down by native shikaris, and where they afterwards found wild dogs eating the carcase of the tiger, which they had presumably killed, but I cannot find any account of the dogs having been seen in the act of killing a tiger, though I can easily conceive that a hungry tiger, and an equally hungry pack of wild dogs may have come into collision over a newly killed animal, and that the dogs may then in desperation have killed the tiger.

A Coorg planter who has had opportunities of observing the habits of those dogs, tells me that when hunting a deer they do not run in a body, but spread out rather widely, so as to catch the deer on the turn if it moved to right or left. Some of the dogs hang behind to rest themselves, so as to take up the running when other dogs, which have pressed the deer hard, get tired. He once had a bitch the product of a cross between a Pariah and a jungle dog. When she had pups she concealed them in the jungle, and in order to find them she had to be carefully watched and followed up. She went through many manoeuvres to prevent the discovery of her pups, and pottered about in the neighbourhood of the spot where she had concealed them, as if bent on nothing in particular. Then she made a sudden rush into the jungle and disappeared. After much search her pups were found in a hole about three feet deep, which she had dug on the side of a rising piece of ground. The bitch did not bark—the jungle dog does not—and the pups barked but slightly, but the next generation barked as domestic dogs do.

Many years ago I met with a very singular and puzzling circumstance in connection with jungle dogs. I had offered a reward of five rupees for a pup, and one day several natives from a village some three or four miles away, brought me a pup—apparently about six or eight months old. This, it appears, they had caught by placing some nets near the carcase of a tiger I had killed, and on which a pack of these dogs was feeding. They drove the dogs towards the nets, which they jumped, but the pup in question was caught in the net. My cook now appeared on the scene and declared that the pup belonged to him, and that he had brought it from Bangalore, and on hearing this I declined, of course, to pay the reward. As I had never, and have never, seen a jungle dog pup, I neither could then, nor can now, undertake to say whether the pup was a wild one or not, though it seemed to me that it might have been a kind of mongrel animal with a good deal of the pariah dog in it. The natives then requested the cook to take the pup and pay them five rupees for their trouble. This he declined to do, and they then said they would take it back to the carcase of the tiger and let it go. This they did, and the pup was never heard of again, and I assume that it must have rejoined the wild dogs. As my cook had no conceivable motive for falsely asserting that the dog was his, I can only assume that the animal had strayed away and joined the pack of wild dogs.

There is no reward for killing wild dogs in Mysore, as is the case in the Madras Presidency, and I should strongly advise that one should be given, as from the great destruction of the game, on which they at present live, these animals will soon become very destructive to cattle, and possibly, or even probably, dangerous to man. And it is the more important to attend to this matter at once, because I find, from Jerdon's "Mammals of India," that the bitch has at least six whelps at a birth, and he mentions that Mr. Elliot (the late Sir Walter) remarks that the wild dog was not known in the Southern Maharatta country until of late years, but that it was now very common; and he adds that he once captured a bitch and seven cubs, and had them alive for some time. No one has any interest in killing these jungle dogs, and until a reward is offered for their destruction, they will go on increasing at an alarming rate.

I now pass on to offer some remarks on snakes, and especially on the great number of deaths said to be caused by them, and I say said to be caused by them, because I have good reason to suppose that the immense number of deaths (sometimes returned at 17,000 or 18,000 for all India) reported as being caused by them, are really poisoning cases which are falsely returned as being due to snake bite. When mentioning this surmise on board of a P. and O. ship to two civilians, they demurred to the idea, and I then asked them if they had ever known within their own cognizance of a man being killed by a snake—i.e., either seen a man fatally bitten, or who had been fatally bitten. They never had, and that too during a service of about twenty-four years. I then, out of curiosity, made inquiries through all the first-class passengers, and at last met with one lady who had a gardener who had been killed by a snake. I also got my English servant to make a similar inquiry in the second-class, and no passenger there had known of a case, though one of them had been engaged in surveying operations for ten years. My attention has been particularly called to this subject in consequence of my own long experience, which stretches back to the year 1855, and, though cobras have been killed in and around my house, and in the plantations, I have not only never known of a death from snake bite on my estates, but have, since the date mentioned, never heard of but one case in my neighbourhood, and that was of a boy who was killed by some deadly snake about four or five miles from my house. I made inquiries in Bangalore on this subject. Now Bangalore is a place which always had a bad reputation as regards cobras. The population is large, and there are, of course, numerous gardens, and many grass cutters are employed, and the occupations there of a large number of people are such as to make them liable to risk from snake bite; and yet, in the course of the year, there had only been, three cases of snake bite. How is it then that such an infinitesimal number of the cases reported on occur within the cognizance of Europeans? And unless some competent observer is at hand to determine the cause of death, what can be easier than to poison a man, puncture his skin, and then point to the puncture as an evidence that the death was caused by snake bite?

Of one thing I feel certain, and that is, that the cobra is a timid snake, that it is not at all inclined to bite, and unless assailed and so infuriated, will not bite, even if trodden on by accident, as long as the snake is not hurt, which, of course, it would not be if trodden upon by the bare foot, and that is why, I feel sure, I have so rarely heard of a man being bitten by a snake during my long experience in India. I can give a remarkable confirmatory instance, which happened at my bungalow some years ago. My English servant had got his feet wet one morning, and had placed his shoes to dry on a ledge of the bungalow just above the place where the bath-room water runs out. At about three in the afternoon he went in his slippers round the end of the bungalow to get his shoes, and trod on a cobra which was lying in the soft and rather muddy ground created by the bath-room water. He had stepped on to about the middle of the snake's body, but probably rather nearer the tail than the head. The cobra then reared up its body, spread its hood, hissed, and struggled to get free, while my servant held up his hands to avoid the chance of being bitten, and he said that he could see that the afternoon sun was illuminating the interior of its throat, but he was afraid to let it go, thinking that it would then be more able to bite him. This, however, he is quite positive it never attempted to do, and after some moments of hesitation he jumped to one side, and the snake, so far from offering to bite when liberated, went off in the opposite direction with all speed. I am sure that wild animals perceive quite as readily as tame ones do the difference between what is purely accidental, and what results from malice prepense. The snake must have perceived that its being trodden upon was a pure accident, and, as it was not hurt, did not bite. A Brahmin once told me of a somewhat similar case, where his mother, seeing what she supposed was a kitten in a passage of the house, gave it a push on one side with her foot. It turned out to be a cobra, which spread its hood and hissed, but never offered to bite her. Colonel Barras, the author of some charming natural history books, told me that he quite agrees that the cobra is disinclined to bite, and pave me a practical illustration of this which had fallen within his own observation. On one occasion, when some of my coolies were crossing a log, which was lying on the ground, my overseer, just as they were doing so, observed that under a bent-up portion of the log there was a cobra. He waited till all the coolies had crossed over and moved on, and then stirred up the cobra and killed it. I mention these instances to show that it is probably owing to the fact of the cobra not being at all an aggressive snake, and not being given to bite unless attacked, or hurt, that no death has occurred on my estates, or in my neighbourhood during such a long period of time.

But there is probably another reason, which has not, that I am aware of, been taken into account by previous writers, and that is that snakes keep a much better look out, and perceive the approach of people from a much greater distance than is usually supposed. I was much struck with this fact on two occasions this year. In one case I was walking along a foot road in my compound, and on going round a bend of the road saw, about thirty yards away, a snake in the road with its body half raised, and evidently in an on-the-look-out attitude, and the moment it perceived me it lowered its body and went off through the long grass. In the other case I saw a snake on bare ground upwards of 100 yards away which had evidently seen me, for it made off in the way which a disturbed snake always does. I was this year surprised to hear tigers and snakes classed together as to running away by a toddy-drawer—a class of people who are often out in the jungle at dusk, and sometimes later. I had made a new four feet trace of about a mile long along a beautiful ridge which connects my estate with an outlying piece of the property, and unfortunately mentioned to my wife that at the end of the path tigers crossed over occasionally (it was a tiger pass as the natives call it), and she objected to go there late in the evening. Being desirous of going to the end of the path one evening, I called to a toddyman in my employ and told him to accompany us, telling my wife that he was a timid creature and not likely to incur any risk he could avoid. I mentioned to him the apprehension of the lady, when he said, "Tigers and snakes run away," and he seemed to have no apprehension as regards either of them, though part of the land in which he cut toddy trees was on the tiger pass. And I may mention that I this year wounded a tiger within fifty yards of the pass, and on the following morning saw the tracks of a tiger and tigress (the track of the latter is easily to be distinguished as it is longer and narrower than that of the male) in the jungle adjoining the end of the foot road alluded to.

As many Europeans kill all snakes they meet with, it is well to mention that the tank snake—a large snake often from nine to ten feet long—is not only harmless but useful, as it lives so largely on rats and mice, and is in consequence sometimes called the rat snake. On one occasion a manager shot one of these snakes near my house, and it had a rat in its mouth when killed, and such snakes, so far from being killed, ought to be carefully protected. I was this year rather interested in observing the proceedings of one of these snakes when followed up by two dogs of mine in the open. First of all, it made for a clump of two or three scrubby trees, and, apparently first fastening itself by the neck to a stump, lashed out with its tail. Then when the dogs came closer it again made off through the grass, but on being overtaken by the dogs must have either bitten one of them, or lashed it with its tail, as the dog gave a sharp cry and retreated. On a previous occasion one of these snakes bit a dog of mine, and it was not in the slightest degree affected. These snakes travel at a fair pace, and I found by trotting along parallel to one that it can move at the rate of the moderate jog trot of a horse, and apparently keep up this pace with ease. But, though it would be easy for me to write more about snakes, the reader has probably heard enough of them, and I hope has learnt some facts of practical importance by the way, and I shall now offer a few remarks on jungle pets.

It is commonly supposed that wild animals naturally or instinctively dread man, but it seems to me that, though no doubt a certain degree of dread of man may have been, after having been acquired by experience, transmitted to the offspring, wild animals require to be taught to dread man by their parents, for we find that if animals are caught when very young and are not confined in any way, they not only do not dread man, but eventually prefer his society to that of their own species.

The first instance I have to notice of this is in the case of a spotted deer stag which belonged to a neighbour of mine. This animal, which had been caught when a fawn, used to accompany the coolies in the morning and remained with them all day, but in the evening it went into the jungle regularly and disappeared for the night, and again turned up at the morning muster with unfailing regularity. It thus roamed the jungle all night, and remained with man all day. At last it became dangerous to man, as tame stags often do, and had to be shot.

Another still more extraordinary instance was in the case of a pet of my own—what the natives call a flying cat, but in reality a flying squirrel (Pteromys petaurista)—an animal that sleeps all day and feeds at night (though on one occasion, mentioned in a previous chapter, I saw one feeding on fruit at about seven one morning), and is in habits somewhat like the bat, though clearly of the squirrel order. Its wings, if indeed they may be called such, consist merely of a flap of skin stretching from the fore to the hind legs. When at rest this flap, as it folds into the side, is not very noticeable, and the animal presents, when on the ground, or on the branch of a tree, the appearance of a very large, grey furred squirrel. It cannot, of course, rise from the ground, but, when travelling from tree to tree, it spreads its flap, or perhaps rather sets its sail, by the agency of osseous appendages attached to the feet, but which fold up against the leg when the animal is at rest, and starts like a man on the trapeze—descending from one point to rise again to about a similar level on the next tree, but when the flight is extended (Jerdon, in his "Mammals of India," says he has seen one traverse in the air a distance of sixty yards) the squirrel reaches the tree very low down. When clearing the forest these squirrels often emerged from their holes in the trees and gave me good opportunities of observing their movements, and I feel sure that I have seen them traverse distances of at least 100 yards. One of these squirrels was brought to me when it was about half grown, and came to consider my house as its natural home. It soon discovered a suitable retreat for the day in the shape of an empty clothes-bag hanging at the back of a door, and in this it slept all day. It came out at dusk, and used often to sit on the back of my high backed chair as I sat at dinner, and then I gave it fruit and bread. After dinner away it went to the jungle, and I seldom saw anything more of it till very early in the morning, when it used to enter the house by an open swing window, get on to my bed, and curl itself up at my feet. When I rose my pet did so too and betook itself to the clothes-bag, and there spent the day, to go through the same round the following night. This very pretty and interesting animal met with the common fate of defenceless pets, and was killed by a dog as it was making its way to the jungle one evening.

A third instance I may give as regards the way in which wild animals readily become domesticated, and eventually seem to prefer the society of man to that of their own species. In this case my pet was a hornbill, a bird of discordant note, and with a huge beak, and a box-like crowned head. This creature was also totally unrestrained, but showed a most decided preference for the society of man. One day it joined some of its species which made their appearance in the jungle near my house, but soon got tired of or disgusted with them, and speedily returned to the bungalow. It used to swallow its food like a man taking a pill, and it was surprising to observe the ease with which balls of rice of about the size of two large walnuts were dispatched. On one occasion it flew off with my bunch of keys, but was luckily seen by my servant, who gave the alarm. The bird threw back its head the moment it alighted on the first convenient branch, and it was only from the ring sticking in the front of its beak that it was prevented from swallowing the entire bunch. Finding my people close upon it, the bird flew away to a piece of forest some hundreds of yards away, where it seemed to take a most aggravating pleasure in dangling my keys from the tops of the loftiest trees, and it was some time before it let them drop, which I conclude it at last did merely because it could not swallow them.

Now, though none of the pets I have mentioned were made miserable by restraint, and evidently must have found themselves perfectly happy in the society of man, it is very remarkable that, though all of them must have had (and the bird certainly had) frequent opportunities of making the acquaintance of their species as they roamed the jungle at night, they regularly returned to the society of man. I can only conjecture that the force of habit must have, as it were, chained them to the place they had become accustomed to. It is difficult to guess at any other reason than the force of habit, but it is just possible that the following fact may have something to do with their neglect of their own species. It is well known that a great many animals and birds refuse to, or cannot, propagate their kind when in a state of confinement. Now these pets of mine, and the stag which belonged to my neighbour, were not indeed confined in any sense, but it is just possible that the altered conditions under which they lived may have acted on their animal desires, and so have rendered them indifferent to the society of their species. Or perhaps it is conceivable that, in consequence of their living in or about an inhabited dwelling, they may have contracted bodily impurities which may have been perceptible to their wild congeners.

I had here intended to close this chapter, but a few lines more must be devoted to guns, or rather to a gun, for the general opinion in India now seems to be that only one gun is necessary for shooting shot and ball—at least for all shot shooting and ball shooting in the jungly countries. That gun is the widely-known Paradox, which, up to 100 yards, is as accurate as a double rifle, and even at 150 yards makes very fair practice. This gun was a good many years ago recommended to me by Sir Samuel Baker, and I found it to be such an excellent weapon that I now use no other. The great advantage of the Paradox is that the gun is a good shot gun, and gives a pattern quite equal to the best of cylinder guns, and of course comes up to the shoulder so readily that the sportsman can take snap shots as well as with any other fowling-piece. The immense advantage of this in a jungly country, and in one with long grass, must be readily apparent to anyone accustomed to shoot in such regions, where you often require to be able to fire as sharply as you do at a snipe rising just within range.

I am informed by Messrs. Holland and Holland, of 98, New Bond Street (the makers of the Paradox guns), that the Paradox system of ball and shot guns was the invention of Colonel Fosbery, V.C. Originally it was intended for the ordinary 12-bore guns, but its principle has now been applied to smaller weapons, such as those of 20 bore, and also to heavy guns of 8 or 10 bore for attacking elephants, bison, and other very large game. Guns of the two last-named bores are from two to three pounds lighter than rifles of similar bores, and the increased handiness caused by the diminution of weight is of course of immense advantage. Messrs. Holland and Holland inform me that they have made many experiments with the 8-bore Paradox against the 8-bore rifle, and in every case have obtained higher velocity and greater penetration with the Paradox. The new 10-bore is almost a 9, and practically is big enough for any game. It shoots 8 drams of powder, and a fairly long conical bullet, and its weight is about 12-1/2 lbs. Messrs. Holland and Holland have invented a new steel bullet for these guns, and with this the penetration is very great. The 20 and 16-bore Paradox guns weigh from 6-1/2 lbs. to 7 lbs., and are largely used on the Continent for shooting wild boar, bears, and other large game. Nearly all these guns are made with hammers, because as a rule sportsmen travelling in wild countries prefer to have the old-fashioned hammer guns, which are so universally understood, instead of a hammerless gun, which cannot be so easily repaired should it break down in any part. Messrs. Holland and Holland inform me that for the ordinary 12-bore Paradox weighing 7 lbs. the usual charge of 3 drams is all that is necessary for soft-skinned animals such as tigers, leopards, and bears, but they also make a heavier 12-bore, weighing from 8 lbs. to 8-1/2 lbs., and shooting 4 or 4-1/2 drams of powder, but generally recommend the usual 7 lbs. Paradox, and, from my experience of the latter with tigers, I do not think one could desire a better gun for all jungle shooting, though I need hardly add that for antelope shooting on the plains a long range rifle is desirable.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] "Jungle Life in India, or the Journeys and Journals of an Indian Geologist," by V. Ball, M.A. London, Thos. De La Rue and Co., 1880.

[22] "My Indian Journal," by Colonel Walter Campbell. Edinburgh, Edmonston and Douglas, 1864.

[23] In Jerdon's "Mammals of India" it is stated that in Nepaul the wild dogs, whose urine is said to be peculiarly acrid, sprinkle it over bushes through which an animal will probably move with the view of blinding their victim. Jerdon certainly disbelieves the native story of their capturing their prey through the acridity of their urine. It seems to me not improbable that the wild dogs may have become aware of the offensive character of their urine, and in passing near a tiger might discharge some of it with the view of annoying the tiger and driving him away, and also perhaps as a mark of contempt, and that this probably was the origin of the widely spread story I have alluded to in the text.



CHAPTER VI.

THE INDIAN BISON.

Though at the risk of being thought sentimental, I cannot say that I approach the subject of bison shooting with much satisfaction, except, perhaps, in the thought that what I am about to write may be the means of prolonging in some degree, however infinitesimal, the existence of the race of these splendid animals, for I am afraid that nothing that anyone could write would prevent their numbers from being steadily diminished, and diminished, too, in some cases even by people who call themselves sportsmen; for one rather well-known writer has not only killed cow bisons, but actually published the fact—a thing that he certainly would not have done had the custom of shooting them not been common in some parts of India. I am happy to say that I never saw a dead cow bison, and in my part of Mysore, in the course of upwards of thirty-seven years' experience, I have never heard of more than two or three cows having been killed. Anything more foolish and barbarous than the killing of cow bisons cannot be conceived, for there is not a more harmless and inoffensive animal in the jungle than the bison—harmless because it seldom attacks[24] crops (I have never known of more than one instance of their doing so), and inoffensive because, if not molested, it never attacks man; and Mr. Sanderson, in his admirable work entitled "Thirteen Years amongst the Wild Beasts of India," declares that even solitary bulls, which are supposed to be dangerous, even if not molested, are not really so, though in the event of a native coming suddenly on a bull in the long grass, he admits the bison may spring suddenly up and dash at the intruder to clear him from his path. He has a most sympathetic chapter on these noble animals, and has enjoyed from an elephant's back the best opportunities of observing them, as the bison does not fear the elephant, in whose company indeed it is often found to be, and after having thus observed a herd of bison grazing, he says that he has "often left the poor animals undisturbed." Laterly he never thought of attacking herd bison, as it is often difficult to get a shot at the bull of the herd, and confined his shooting to those old solitary bulls which have been turned out of the herds by younger and more vigorous animals. These ought alone, indeed, to be the object of pursuit, and it is one usually carried on under such circumstances and amidst such splendid scenes that the sport is very attractive, and the pursuit of the solitary bull, writes Mr. Sanderson, can never, he imagines, pall on the most successful hunter. Perhaps this is true, but after having killed, say six solitary bulls, I think that a sportsman ought to be content for the rest of his life. A young forest officer lately told me that, having killed about that number, he had announced to his friends his intention of not killing any more. Shortly afterwards he fell in with two bulls who were engaged in a fierce battle with each other, and he might easily have shot one or perhaps both of them, but he had strength of mind to resist the temptation, a fact which, if known, would certainly entitle him to advancement in the service.

I have said that the bison, unless molested, will never attack man, and I was so confident of this that I once sent a highly valued European in my employ, to photograph a solitary bull, merely sending with him a native with a gun, and with instructions to fire in the event of the photographer being attacked. I selected a small piece of open swampy grass ground in a detached piece of jungle through which solitary bulls often passed, and knowing the direction of the wind at that season of the year, had no difficulty in avoiding any chance of the bull winding the photographer. The camera was placed on the edge of the jungle, and presently a bull came slowly grazing along the swamp, when he unluckily looked up to find the photographer just taking the cap off, within about ten paces. Never was there anything more annoying, and the thing would have been a magnificent success had my man been provided with the instantaneous process. But he was not, and the bull turned and fled through the mud with a most tremendous rush, having, I suppose, taken the lens for the glare of the eye of some new kind of tiger. The sudden change in the appearance of the bull was described to me as being most remarkable, for as he grazed quietly along he appeared to be one of the most harmless and domestic of animals, while the moment the sight of the camera fell on his astonished vision he was at once transformed into the wildest looking animal conceivable.

It is difficult to believe that big game in remote spots can perceive whether a man means to harm them or not, but it is remarkable that when on his way to the jungle alluded to, the photographer passed two sambur deer in the long grass, and at no great distance away, and saw them still lying there on his return. A bear was also rolling and grunting in the jungle close to him as he was waiting for the bull. On his return to the hut (put up for the occasion about a mile away) he was amused to find the native servant I had sent with him seated between two roasting fires which he imagined, and perhaps not without reason, would prevent his being attacked by a tiger. During the absence of my amateur photographer either a tiger or panther had passed close to the hut.

The photographer returned to the swamp on the following morning, but no bull arrived, and I gave up the attempt to obtain a photograph of a bison. But it is time now to describe the bison.