THE GAME BIliDS OF INDIA. 11 



nowhere wide, seldom over a hundred feet or so, these patches often 

 ran for lialf a mile or more withont the break of a patch of forest, 

 and they formed simply ideal feeding' grounds for every kind of game, 

 from the Jungle-fowl and barking-deer to elephants and bufialoes. 

 The miTstard was high enough to afford good cover, so that in 

 spite of the wiliness of the birds it was possible to obtain quite a 

 good bag bv wandering alona' inside the edge of the iungle, 

 whilst a couple of men beat through the mustard about 20 yards 

 behind one. On the morning in question, whilst the sun was still 

 invisible I had got to the first patch and was about to start along 

 the edge of the forest whilst my men did the beating, when I caught 

 sight of a barking-deer coming out of it and a snap shot with my 

 express turned it over and so commenced a lucky day's shoot. 



The shot, however, disturbed every thing close by, so as 

 we were only a few hundred yards from the camp, I sent one man 

 back with the deer and waited for his return. By this time the 

 birds had regained confidence and were out feeding once more and 

 we had hardly started our beat before about a dozen Jungle-fowl 

 were up with a tremendous fluster, and had dived headlong into the 

 forest, leaving a fine old cock on the ground, whilst another bird 

 escaped with a bad scare. A hundred yards furtiher on a second 

 but smaller lot were flushed, and again resulted in a miss and a hit, 

 another cock being added to the bag. After this a quarter mile's 

 slow trudge showed nothing but a glimpse of a couple of hens as 

 they scurried on foot into the undergrowth, too far way for a shot 

 then a single cock gets up and is missed and within another 200 

 yards I managed at last to bring off a clean right and left at two 

 hens, the last of a lot to get away out of the mustard. This sort 

 of thing goes on until by about 9-0 a.m. I have got to the end of 

 the cultivation, and have collected 8 Jungle-fowl, a couple of Kalij 

 Pheasant and one Barking-deer, and have expended some 20 car- 

 tridges. Of course the great majority of birds have got up well 

 out of shot, and in one stretch of about half a mile of mustard well 

 over 200 birds miist have been flushed without my firing off my gun 

 once. In fact the majority of shots obtained were from tiny patches 

 of mustard which lay so snuggled in the forest that the birds could 

 not see us until we emerged from the forest tract into the cultivation. 

 Even in there, however, as often as not we failed to obtain a 

 shot, though the birds were there in numbers. All we saw as we 

 peeped out of our leafy cover would be the last of a flock as it dis- 

 appeared, an old cock bringing up the rear of his family, tail and 

 head down as he ran for all he was worth into safety. Of course, 

 on such occasions when it was possible a running shot was taken, 

 and when shooting without dogs and especially when shooting to 

 feed oneself and a hungry crowd of coolies, it ir, absolutely legiti- 

 mate to do so or else go without any dinner. 



