158 REMINISCENCES OF PIG-STICKING. 



requisition, but the piece de resistance are the nets with 

 which they surround the cover in which the game has 

 taken shelter, and driving the animals into them, i.e., 

 the nets, they are soon killed and aferwards cooked and 

 greedily devoured. It is lucky that these big hunts are 

 not of more frequent occurrences, or they would very 

 soon, with the pot-hunters, put an end to all the porcine 

 tribe in Bengal proper. 



I shall conclude now by showing how easy it is now 

 for natives to keep guns. 



The abolition of the Arms Act has enabled most shika- 

 rees to possess themselves of guns, the fee for a license 

 is, I believe, eight annas per annum, which no one would 

 grudge to pay who could afford to pay for a gun fifteen 

 and twenty rupees. 



In the District of Murshedabad alone there are, I be- 

 lieve, over two thousand gun licenses issued. The cul- 

 tivators very rarely resort to fire-arms for the protection 

 of their crops, they being mostly used by zemindars, well- 

 to-do Baboos and the village loafers for shooting birds 

 of all descriptions and at all seasons, and by the shikarees 

 or pot-hunters for shooting pigs. 



The consequence of all this is that pigs are fast de- 

 creasing, and in places where it was thought nothing 

 getting half-a-dozen big boars in a day, you will not, 

 perhaps, get one now. Dolori se traditum ! 



