BIG GAME SHOOTING. 5 



and kill it ; in this case we think the beast would certainly belong to him unless it had 

 been so badly wounded in the first instance as to be unable to move away. 



When two men sit up over a kill for lion or leopard there should be some 

 arrangement as to the division of the trophies, such as one man to take the skull and 

 the other the skin, that is to say, if both fire together. 



Perhaps a better way is for them to toss up for first shot. If two men were 

 sitting up and had made no such arrangement and happened to be using similar 

 rifles, the same bore and grooving, there might be unpleasantness if both fired 

 together. 



Two sportsmen should never hunt together, though they might camp together, 

 otherwise, sooner or later, there is bound to be some misunderstanding, probably over 

 some trivial matter. A much better plan is for them to make their camps, say, quite 

 twenty miles apart, and meet occasionally to talk over their sport. 



A man should never encroach on a country that another man is in. We should 

 think twenty-five miles would not be too great a margin to allow him, and even that is 

 rather close. In Kashmir, if a sportsman has occupied a nullah, a person coming 

 after would pass on, and the same rule should apply to Africa, though it is not 

 always done. There is plenty of room and game in Africa, so there is not much 

 trouble or inconvenience in searching out a good game locality for oneself. Camp 

 should be changed at least every week, for in that time one can hunt all the likely 

 ground within a day's walk. 



" Knowledge of country " is essential to bushcraft, and will be gone into later. 

 Before passing on to spoor and tracking, we would impress on the reader that he must 

 not expect to find, e.xcept under most favourable circumstances, spoor quite as we 

 have drawn. 



Those shown are, as near as can be obtained, perfect representations of an 

 animal, usually walking. 



But generally only a small part of the spoor is visible. 



An animal moving quickly makes a very different spoor, for the mud is thrown 

 back and to the sides, and the fore part or toe of the hoof is the only part that shows, 

 especially when the ground is at all hard. 



The hoofs of most buck are much spread out when running, and the longer 

 and more split the hoofs are, the more is this apparent {e.g., Situtunga and Lechwe). 

 The spread of the two halves of the hoof, and their distance apart, gives the 

 same animal's spoor a very different aspect and is no guide as to the animal, except, 

 perhaps, in an animal like sable, which habitually spreads more than others. 



The droppings also vary considerably. Those of water buck during the rains 



