HUNTING & SHOOTING IN CEYLON 



simply enormous, their huge wings flapping slowly and 

 regularly, the head and neck held well back into the chest, 

 as it were, and the great bill projecting horizontally forward 

 like a prow or bowsprit a string of these birds thus sailing 

 along in single file forming a grand sight. The first time 

 I ever shot one was during a trip with Wright, and we were 

 then putting up in the tank-bungalow on the bund of 

 Topawewa, in ancient Polonnaruwa, one of the famous buried 

 cities. We saw a pelican far out, and Tom would try a 

 shot at it with his Lee-Speed .303. Asked as to the range, 

 I gave it in my opinion as 400 yards with a coarse sight, 

 but Tom's shot, taking it at that, went just over the bird. 

 It was not disturbed, however, so I tried with a finer sight, 

 hitting it, breaking the wing just at the middle joint as we 

 found after some men had retrieved it by means of a canoe. 

 On another occasion I stalked one from behind the 

 bund of a tank, and killed it at about 80 yards with a 

 Mauser automatic carbine. However, there is no sport in 

 it, and it is enough to be able to say you have killed one. 

 Crocodiles, in the tanks, can occasionally be shot from the 

 bund when basking on rock islets in the water or when 

 floating on the surface of the water. A shot from a heavy 

 12-bore, like a " Paradox," at the back of the head, or any- 

 where fairly in the head, from above, as in shooting off 

 the bund of a tank, will usually kill at once, for I have 

 found the head, after such a shot, smashed almost to a 

 pulp, not a whole piece of bone left. In the dry season 

 crocodiles may occasionally be met with in the jungle 

 journeying in search of water, and also are sometimes found 

 in the forest lying dormant for a long time, in which state 

 nothing will move them and they only " bellow " like a bull 

 if prodded or pulled about. I and my friend McDonnell 

 once came upon one, at Giritella Tank, in a big burrow 



