110 GAME AND HOUNDS. 



impossible to get even a sight of them, I have seen play 

 along for half a mile across an open pine chopping before 

 two curs yelping behind them. They seemed to consider it 

 only fun, stopping every few jumps, and looking back at the 

 curs, until they got within a few feet of them. About the 

 tamest deer I ever met were some that were habitually chased 

 by hounds, and never still-hunted." * 



In Ceylon, where hounds are very generally used 

 by the British planters in their hunting excursions, 

 the general opinion is that they only cause temporary 

 disturbance to the game, which will run before them 

 while the hunt lasts, but soon return to their old 

 haunts; and as a matter of fact, the wildest and 

 heaviest game is often found close to the dwellings 

 of man, and within ear-shot of most of the noises 

 which are an accompaniment of human occupation- 

 such as the noise of passing railway trains, noises 

 made by vehicles and horses, hammering, gun firing, 

 shouting, and other such sounds. In Ceylon, for in- 

 stance, we were personally informed by station mas- 

 ters and others on the railway leading up from Kandy 

 to Newera Eliya, through an extensive tract of jungle- 

 covered hills, that the wild elephants constantly came 

 down to the line, and in some instances had actually 

 committed damages to some of the station buildings; 

 their dung is also often found dropped upon the 

 public roads, where there is considerable traffic 

 *by day. 



Thus in 1894, a Ceylon paper informs us 



" Our Batticoloa correspondent writes A rogue elephant has 

 been seen between the 76th and 77th mile post on the 

 Batticoloa road : also a herd of rogue elephants between the 



* The Still-Hunter, by Theodore S. Van Dyke, p. 27. 



