228 MY SOMALI BOOK 



were I not supported by undoubted authorities, of 

 whom I will quote two. 



Colonel K. G. Burton, an observant sportsman of 

 great Indian experience, writes : "In my experience 

 neither the tiger nor the panther hunts by scent, but 

 depends almost entirely on sight and perhaps hearing. 

 This has been proved time and again by these beasts 

 of prey passing close to buffaloes or goats tied up as 

 bait, without seeing them, owing to the bait having 

 made neither sound nor movement. I have known 

 many occasions on which a tiger has passed close to 

 an animal thus tied up, and has killed another a few 

 yards farther on. For this reason, that they hunt by 

 sight and not by scent, one ties up the bait on or near 

 a path or watercourse, or near a pool of water, so that 



the prowling tiger may come upon it 

 /a- -L^^i3^^ "^ ^^ course of his nightly wander- 

 '"'''^' ' ings. ... I have certainly always 



been under the impression, from 

 general observation of its habits, that 

 the Indian leopard or panther hunts 

 by sight and sound. It is fond of prowling round 

 villages to pick up stray goats or dogs, or of following 

 in the wake of herds of goats, and carrying off stragglers. 

 I shot one once which was well known as being in the 

 habit of hunting monkeys of the lungoor species. It 

 would be very unlikely to hunt monkeys by scent." 



Another sportsman with unrivalled experience of 

 the Indian jungles — he has shot two hundred tigers 

 and then lost count ! — is Mr. F. C. Hicks, late of the 

 Indian Forest Service. In his recently published book, 

 Forty Years mnong the Wild Animals of India, he 



