43 



almost in the style of a foxhound while " drawing" direct to the 

 spot, and in his hungry haste jumped on a stone beside which was 

 the dead bear and almost on the carcass. All at once matters 

 changed, and I shall not soon forget the horror-struck look of the 

 hyaena as stiffened as if by magic, too frightened to move back or 

 forward, and with every bristle erect like a worried cat, he stood 

 quivering over the body : although I had spared it before I could 

 not resist taking his worthless life as he stood. 



That was a red letter day, one of those that reward an Indian 

 sportsman for his numberless unrecorded blank excursions. Some 

 one says of sport, 



" All hits are history," 

 " All misses are mystery," 



and even to see as little as is recorded in these notes, a man must 

 undergo many a sore trial of mind and body, of temper and of the 

 flesh. 



The time was January ; the most delightful mouth everywhere 

 in India. I left my friends' tents about three o'clock one cold 

 morning and under a beautiful full moon, had a pleasant ride of 

 eight or ten miles to my ground, which I had not long reached, 

 before I got the bear and hyasna just mentioned, both fine speci- 

 mens : within a couple of hours after, perhaps much less, I killed 

 two more good bears, both of which gave me some trouble ; I then 

 shot my way back to the tents, going for many miles along one of 

 the salt marshes of the upper part of the Northern Circars and 

 getting a large and very diversified bag of small game ; among 

 them, my three first specimens of the flamingo, some red-crested 

 pochards, a very beautiful teal,* which I have never seen before or 

 since, and seeing what I think were specimens of the scaup pochard 

 too wary to bag however, and winding up when near the tents 

 with an antelope which notwithstanding a ball through his body, 

 gave my active Deccanee galloway a long and uncommonly fast 

 gallop before the spear-blade was blooded. 



Before luncheon I got back to the tents which were furnished 

 with all those luxurious comforts for which Indian Civilians of a 

 few years ago were so famous. 



* I think that this was the " Clucking teal," Querquedula glocitans, No, 966 of 

 Jcrdon's bi rds of India." Volume 2, page 808, VAGRANT. 



