BEAR SHOOTING BY NIGHT 



Of the eleven tigers we bagged, one, which fell to my 

 rifle, measured ten feet two inches, the record so far as my 

 own shooting is concerned, for I have never shot one 

 bigger, and yet, strangely enough, it gave me less trouble 

 to secure than many considerably smaller. 



I had taken up my position in a tree overlooking a dry 

 watercourse, and as the beaters approached, the animal 

 came walking down this nullah. As he was passing the 

 tree I fired, and at the shot, which struck him high up in 

 the shoulder, he gave a savage roar, and springing up the 

 bank close under my very tree, was looking to right and 

 left in search of his hidden foe, when I dropped him with 

 the second barrel. 



He was a very old tiger, light in colour, and, I remember, 

 much scarred about the face, possibly the scars from wounds 

 received in combat with others of his kind, or in a battle 

 with a boar. 



At one of our camps in the Chanda District, we heard of 

 a number of bears in the neighbourhood, and as they were 



said to frequent a pool of water near the tents, D and 



I decided to sit up for them, so had a machan * erected, 

 and taking our blankets, settled down for the night. 



Soon after dark, and just as the moon was rising, we 

 heard a couple of bears on the hill opposite us, making a 

 fiendish noise, evidently engaged in an amorous encounter. 



A little later one of them or so we assumed, for we 

 could only make out a moving mass of black came down 

 to the water and was sent off screaming with a broken 

 shoulder in the direction whence it came. After this we 

 carried on a fusillade for the greater part of the night, taking 

 alternate chances. I forget how many shots we fired between 

 us, but I know we only bagged one bear ! 



I dislike night shooting, and this was the last but one 

 occasion when I missed a tiger that I have ever indulged 

 in this kind of sport. 



One day we were beating a strip of jungle for sambar, 

 or anything else that might turn up, when a bear came 

 shuffling along a narrow path opposite my position. 



Thinking this a good opportunity for trying the effect 

 of my little *360 Express on one of these animals, I took a 



* Platform. 



G 81 



