CHAPTER XVI 



SITTING UP 



The velvet tread of lurking feet 

 Across the silent hours — 



The arguments for and against sitting up have 

 been raised so frequently that only a brief 

 mention of them is necessary here. 



For sitting up it is claimed that it is specially 

 adapted to the poor man ; that it is often the 

 only way in which, owing to difficulties of the 

 ground or lack of beaters, a shot can be obtained ; 

 that the individual work done by a man who 

 puts out his own tie-up, makes his own machan 

 and spends the night in it, outweighs that done by 

 a man in a beat, who, though he may have done 

 the preliminary tie-up and machan work, must 

 leave the handling of the beat to his shikaris ; 

 and, finally, that when sitting up a man will get 

 a longer and more intimate view of his quarry in 

 particular and of jungle nature in general than 

 is possible in a beat. 



Against sitting up it is said that it is poaching, 

 non-sporting, and that animals get away wounded. 

 Indeed, so strongly is this last view held, that in 

 the United Provinces, rules have been expressly 

 framed to discourage sitting up. These have 



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