vi PREFACE 



is a tendency to assume that very little big game now 

 exists in a depreciated Hindustan, or that such as does yet 

 remain is only to be obtained through the agency of native 

 potentates, on elephant-back, and at a vast expenditure of 

 rupees. 



Considerations such as these render it only fair to reader 

 and writer alike that an indication of the aim of these 

 pages should be put forward, not only in extenuation of 

 yet another publication on shikar, but as a guide to their 

 contents, so that their nature may be evident to prospective 

 readers of a critical turn of mind more especially to those 

 who have tired of the subject as presented in the type of 

 work to which allusion has been made. 



The present volume, then, does not attempt to go over 

 old ground. Its aim is rather to present an old though 

 still engrossing subject in what is perhaps a novel manner; 

 to carry the reader into more direct contact with the sur- 

 roundings of the Indian sportsman and naturalist, and, 

 while avoiding as much as possible the recital of personal 

 experience with its stereotyped accompaniments, to lead 

 him into the jungle with all its fascinating variety of scene 

 and season, hill and plain, where in spirit he may make 

 acquaintance or renew an intimacy with its shy denizens 

 and their habits. 



To this end an effort has been made to bring out those 

 apparently unimportant details, the light and shade so to 

 speak, that, apart from the mere gratification of a hunting 

 instinct, go so far to complete the pleasurable whole of 

 a hunter's wanderings. The fact that the illustrations are 

 the work of the author himself may, it is hoped, help to 

 counteract their lack of art. Although amateurish in 

 execution, they possess a value in being essentially correct 

 and strictly true to nature differing in this respect from 

 the fanciful embellishments of the untravelled artist, who 

 works only on second-hand information coupled with a 



