24 INDIAN BIG GAME chap. 



gripping it. This passed off later, and I was fit 

 enough next day except for a lame foot. 



As in nearly all cases of snake bite, the ex- 

 perience was an unsatisfactory one, as we never 

 found the snake, nor could we tell whether he 

 was fresh or had recently used his fangs. The 

 symptoms seemed to indicate a snake of the 

 Russel's viper type. 



I missed a panther, while sitting up, with a 

 patent bullet from an old shot-gun, which I am 

 certain I should not have done with a rifle. 



The first trophy of the trip was a tigress, which 

 stalked down to her kill at 4.30 p.m. I was in a 

 high tree and the kill lay on one of the open 

 plateaux that I love, sloping down from the 

 tigress's cover. She was in view from me for a 

 hundred yards, and it was interesting to see her 

 stalk up on the " bound " system from bush to 

 bush with a pause at each. 



After that we moved to a lowland valley, but 

 before doing so we beat for a tigress which was 

 lying up in a nice overhanging wood on the side 

 of a river. The beat was an easy one, but the 

 local shikari insisted that the tigress would break 

 out to the flank up a little nullah that ran up 

 from the river through the wood, and he posted 

 us accordingly. Unfortunately the tigress, roaring 

 savagely after much beating, took a new line to 

 the end of the cover, up steep cliffs, and away 

 along the river. This was the more natural 

 line of retreat and we ought to have been there, 

 but I had trusted to the local knowledge in- 

 stead of going myself all over the ground as 

 soon as we began tying up. 



