CH. u SOME PRE-WAR TIGER SHOOTS 5 



twenty or thirty miles, sitting up in the evening 

 and shooting snipe next day. Polo and racing 

 flourished. There was no pig-sticking, because 

 there was not then, nor apparently ever has been, 

 at Secunderabad any one with sufficient expert 

 knowledge to start a serious campaign against the 

 numerous pig that could undoubtedly be hunted 

 in that country. 



My first year, except for trips after odd bear 

 and panther, was taken up in learning my work. 

 But in the following year, B. of the 1st Madras 

 Lancers, H. (R.F.A.), and I got leave for three 

 months. 



The Deccan system in those days was for a 

 man to send out, in the early winter, shikaris 

 equipped with his visiting-cards, which had the 

 date on them, to be left with the head men of 

 villages. If the shikari came to a village where 

 there were either no cards, or cards of more than 

 a year old, he left a new card ; and the shooting 

 in the jungles of that village then belonged to his 

 master for the ensuing season. 



A shooting area was thus reserved. Of course 

 the villages had to be contiguous or the system 

 would have been impracticable. The direction 

 in which shikaris were sent was settled by 

 arrangement between officers and messes at the 

 Club, and it was the usual etiquette that an 

 officer of a regiment should have the prior claim 

 to a jungle vacated by officers of his regiment. 

 There was no limit to the number of tiger that 

 might be shot. 



Of course the considerable disadvantages in a 

 system of this nature are obvious. It has now 



