THE INDIAN POACHER AND HIS WAYS 247 

 Pig 



Pitfalls. — Pig, the wild boar and his female companions, 

 commit serious depredations in the villagers' crops and our 

 sympathies are with the latter in their efforts to stop the 

 damage. But no countenance should be given to methods 

 which result in torture or a lingering death. 



The pitfall system, as practised for sambhar and spotted 

 deer, is also used to trap pig. 



Nets. — Pigs are also snared by being driven into a system 

 of nets erected on the line of route they will take on returning 

 to the forest after their foray into the fields. The nets are 

 stout ones with a mesh of four inches by four inches. The nets 

 erected, the men go round and stampede the pigs who bolt 

 blindly for the forest and get enmeshed, when they are 

 speared, knifed or shot. The flesh is eaten or sold in the 

 bazaar. 



This trapping of animals into nets with the object of 

 obtaining the flesh, hides and horns, is very commonly 

 practised in India, especially at seasons when the animals 

 are collected together in numbers in a tract of jungle, e.g., 

 during the hot season, near the only available water or in 

 the monsoon when large tracts of country are inundated* 

 Great drives are undertaken in which animals of both sexes 

 and all ages are slaughtered in large numbers. 



In Assam at certain seasons such drives are carried out, 

 and great skill is exhibited in driving the animals into the 

 nets placed on the outskirts of some thick patches of jungle. 

 The animals stampede and get entangled in the nets in a 

 frightened, struggling mass, and are then knocked on the 

 head in a barbarous fashion. 



Bows a?id Poisoned Arrows. — In some parts of India, more 

 especially amongst the jungle tribes, trapping is not much 

 resorted to but poisoned arrows are used for killing deer and 

 pig, and even larger animals such as bison. The poison used 

 is either decocted from some poisonous plant or shrub or 

 rotten meat. 



Hare 



The native exhibits both ingenuity and his knowledge of 

 the habits and idiosyncrasies of the animals he pursues in 

 his methods of kilhng hares. 



The Light and Bell. — The hare in Pilibhit is trapped in a 



