108 BEST SEASON FOR TAHR. 



sistent it may seem. Nevertheless, it is very satisfactory to 

 make a good bag. When I say a good bag, I mean one of 

 fine, and if possible, of varied specimens, and riot made up, 

 merely for the sake of competition, of inferior animals, such 

 as a man of true sporting instincts would feel ashamed 

 to shoot at, unless he required meat for his camp. I 

 have less sympathy with those who shoot only for the bag, 

 than with the downright old poacher; not the murderous, 

 skulking cadger of the present, who nets and snares for the 

 game-dealer, but a man of the bygone Highland stamp, who 

 stalked a fat stag or shot a brace of grouse quite as much for 

 the keen excitement of the sport as for providing venison for 

 his family and his friends. 



Spring is certainly not the best time of year for tahr- 

 shooting. The proper months are October and November, 

 when the old bucks have their shaggy hair much darker and 

 longer, and the toil in searching for them is lessened by their 

 being at that season lower down on the mountains, and asso- 

 ciated with the does. The weather, too, is then sure to be 

 settled and fine, which, of course, adds so much to the pleasure 

 of hunting. In fact, " the fall " is the best season for sport of 

 almost every kind in the Himalayas, as it is elsewhere. 



