326 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



but preserves an indulgent reticence concerning the 

 consumption of meat. 



With a tolerably wide acquaintance among books 

 on sport, it has often struck me that the writers 

 seldom, if ever, insist sufficiently on one feature of 

 jungle shooting to which the beginner's attention 

 might profitably be drawn. Possibly the omission is 

 due to the fact that (unlike the present scribe) the 

 writers do not attempt to write their experiences until 

 they have left the days of their 'prenticeship so far 

 behind that the more subtle difficulties have been 

 forgotten ; but the fact remains that they do not 

 warn the beginner of the curious difficulty of seeing 

 game, even when on the move, in the jungle. There 

 is something ghost-like and impalpable about even 

 so big a beast as a sambhur in the chequered gloom 

 of the covert, and the uneducated eye refuses to 

 accept it. It is likely that a goodly proportion of 

 unrecorded early misses are to be attributed to the 

 wonderful fashion in which the colour of the deer 

 harmonises with its surroundings. This being so, 

 the new hand cannot begin his apprenticeship to the 

 jungles more profitably than by " calling," or more 

 accurately by letting his shikari call, while he sits 

 by, stock still, with ears and eyes open. Many 

 Burmans, otherwise not very capable as shikaries, are 

 wonderfully successful callers ; it is a pursuit that 

 appeals to the Burman, inasmuch as he has only got 

 to sit still and produce weird noises with a leaf be- 

 tween his lips, a form of exercise which in Burmese 

 esteem compares favourably with walking. Calling 



