58 ARTIFICIAL SALT-LICK. 



saline nature, finding this on their path, generally stop and 

 partake of it. 



This operation is repeated at intervals by the shikaree, un- 

 til in a few days a hole sometimes a foot or so deep is eaten 

 down by the deer. Each time he visits the Jcar (salt), as he 

 terms it, he obliterates the footprints around the hole, so that 

 he is generally able to ascertain about the number and the 

 size of the animals from the tracks and their appearance. 



Having in this manner discovered that a large stag has 

 become a regular nightly visitor, he proceeds to prepare an 

 ambush within a few yards of this artificial salt-lick, taking 

 care, as far as possible, not to make it in the direction of the 

 prevailing wind. He generally digs a hole in the ground, or 

 in a bank should there be one conveniently near, and over 

 the entrance makes a careful covering of grass-sods or earth, 

 leaving only a small aperture to look and shoot through. By 

 this arrangement the deer have not the means of so easily 

 winding him as when merely hidden behind a screen of 

 bushes or of cut boughs ; and also, if there is no moonlight, 

 an animal's body can be seen in dark relief above him against 

 the sky. The result is what may be expected. As the native 

 shikaree seldom wastes a charge of his precious ammunition, 

 the lord of the herd, or at any rate the largest hind, generally 

 bites the dust. 



I have tried this artifice, but without much success, for, 

 although I heard the deer come quite close enough to the 

 fear to prove the efficacy of the plan, they generally managed 

 to get wind of me in some manner which prevented my get- 

 ting a shot. And it requires such an amount of patience, 

 and sometimes endurance on a bitter cold night, that the 

 doubtful result hardly repays one for the trouble, not to 

 mention its being rather a dirty way of doing business. On 

 one occasion, however, I had the luck to get a chance at 

 one of the finest jurrow I ever had the pleasure of putting 

 trigger on. 



