206 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



necessary to the sportsman if he is tying up " kills," i.e. 

 buffaloes over which, when killed, he proposes to have a 

 machan erected and to sit up to catch the animal when it 

 returns to feed. The tiger starts out on his quest for food 

 in the late afternoon. In the darker days of the monsoon 

 period, when the sky is heavily overcast, he will start earlier 

 in the afternoon, but at other periods he does not commence 

 his round till within an hour or two of sunset, and knocks off 

 an hour or two after sunrise, when he lies up for the day in 

 some quiet retreat where shade and water are obtainable. 

 He spends the day mostly in sleep. If he has been successful 

 his kill is somewhere near him, where he can protect it from 

 the flesh-eating predatory smaller fry of the jungle. For, as 

 we have seen, they will know all about his presence and the 

 kill. 



In the early morning the sportsman will visit his tied-up 

 buffalo, or buffaloes if he has several out. The animal is 

 tethered by a rope to a foreleg and provided with fodder. 

 The spot must be carefully chosen, a shady tree being selected 

 and the surroundings left entirely untouched. All of the 

 jungle animals are extremely suspicious and anything out 

 of the way will at once make them shun the spot. Tiger 

 and leopard are more than ordinarily suspicious, and tie-ups 

 are left untouched for no rhyme or reason so far as the sports- 

 man can understand. In fact in the case of an old tiger, 

 who is not ordinarily a cattle feeder, it will often only be due 

 to its non-success in securing a wild animal that will at 

 length drive it by the insistent pangs of hunger to slay the 

 tie-up. As soon as it is seen that the kill has been taken 

 and dragged away, men are summoned, the wide trail is 

 followed up and a machan erected some fifteen feet up in 

 the most convenient tree. In placing the machan it is 

 essential that the line of fire covers the kill. This is not so 

 easy as it may appear at first sight. Branches and leaves will 

 interfere, and yet it may be imperative that they should 

 be left in order to hide one. And the impossibility of seeing 

 behind, for one cannot move, always remains an aggravating 

 factor. If sitting up in a tree without a machan, great 

 difficulty is usually experienced in aiming at an animal 

 passing to the right. It may be possible to obviate this 

 difficulty by choosing a position which will enable you to do 

 this. The best solution is, of course, to learn to shoot from 

 the left shoulder. I have not met many who possessed this 



