32 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



miles away. It was gloriously fresh, and I can remember, 

 as if yesterday, every incident of that ride. As I passed a 

 tank where I had often shot I noted there were still some 

 duck and teal on its placid surface. Further on was a patch 

 of forest on a small rocky hill where we had one day rounded 

 up a bear. Bruin had stayed too long one night feeding on 

 some succulent crop in the open country, a habit of the species 

 to which I shall refer later on, and being surprised by dawn 

 had not had time to get back to his cave, and so had lain up 

 here for the day. Unfortunately for him the irate owner 

 of the crop he had been robbing had noted him leaving in 

 the morning and marked down his refuge. Ordinarily too 

 lazy to carry shikar khubbar to the sahibs, rage in that 

 instance overcame apathy, and the man himself had ap- 

 peared at the door of the office where my chief and myself 

 sat over dreary files and returns. Within half an hour the 

 two of us, a tiffin basket, orderly, and the villager were in a 

 trap bowling along for the patch of woodland and bruin 

 was brought to account. 



A mile further on just behind the small wayside village 

 was the tree in which I had sat up over a village goat, 

 which had been killed by a leopard. The animal had 

 seized his prey, but, frightened by the shouts of some men 

 in the neighbourhood, had dropped his kill in his flight. I 

 spent ten hours in a machan in the hope that the leopard 

 would return and give me a shot. No trace of the beast 

 did I see, though the villagers told me in the morning, and 

 the pugs of the animal supported their statement, that he 

 had come to within fifty yards of the kill and then, growing 

 suspicious, or being too cowardly, had retreated. There 



was a fine moon that night and my surroundings were 

 brilliantly lighted ; but a leopard can hide himself behind 



