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SOME NATURE NOTES.* 

 By 



LlEUT.-COLONEL R. G. BuRTON, i)4TH RuSSELL'iS InFANTRY. 



When I was asked by our Honorary Secretary to contribute a paper 

 on the habits of tigers I replied that surely these habits had already 

 I)oen described down to the last stripe. At the same time ]\Ir. Millard 

 drew my attention to Mr. Selous' recent book African JSature Notes 

 and Reminiscences, containing several chapters of notes on the lion, 

 and it occurred to me that a comparative study of the habits and na- 

 ture of the lion and tiger might be of interest. In reading Mr. 

 Selous' book many points of similarity, or of marked differences, be- 

 tween these and other African and Indian animals occurred to me, 

 ;uid I was led to make comparative notes, from an Indian sportsman's 

 point of view, with regard to my own experiences of matters referred 

 to by the African hunter. 



The Indian hunter has not the unrivalled opportunities of his 

 African comrade for the observation of game. In this country there 

 are none of those vast expanses, teeming with wild life and but seldom 

 trodden by civilized man, wdiich are still to be found in the interior 

 of the Dark Continent. No sportsman has in India had the experi- 

 ences of Gordon Gumming, William Cotton Oswell, and Selous. In 

 India one cannot hunt all the year round. Neither the climatic 

 conditions nor the habitat of the game admit of prolonged excursions. 

 Still, although the days when great game abounded in this country 

 are rapidly passing away, the sportsman who has wandered far afield 

 has in the past twenty years been able to find abundance of animals. 

 Certainly the British military officer has now less opportunity of 

 obtaining sport than he had ten or fifteen years back. Work is more 

 insistent ; remote cantonments have been abandoned ; irksome but 

 perhaps necessary restrictions with regard to shooting have been 

 introduced ; native states that once afforded happy hunting grounds 

 have been closed : and meanwhile with the spread of civilization, 

 population has increased, cultivation has spread and pushed the wild 

 animals into remoter fastnesses where there still remains sufficient 

 forest for their wanderings ; railways have cut up the jungle, and by 



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