HUNTING & SHOOTING IN CEYLON 



The owner of a pack of elk hounds has many difficulties 

 to contend with, and many drawbacks to face, in keeping 

 up the strength of his pack. There are diseases and epi- 

 demics in the kennels, of which dysentery and pneumonia 

 are the most formidable. There are casualties in the field 

 from boar and stag, and occasional fatalities in flooded 

 rivers. And there are dead-fall traps, pits, nooses, and 

 spring-guns set by poaching coolies and native villagers. 



But all these dangers sink into insignificance beside the 

 prowling, dog-eating leopard. He is the sworn enemy of 

 the elk hound. Lurking in thick cover by the side of 

 forest glade or road, woe to the unwary hound finding his 

 solitary way home to his kennel. Or, crouched in a game 

 path, he awaits the approach of hounds running in a line, 

 and wipes them out one after another as they come along. 



Some years ago I had a cruel experience of this, which 

 I take from one of my hunting diaries. It was a cold 

 windy morning in January, and a driving mist blew across 

 the Horton Plains from the north-east. We left the rest- 

 house a little after six o'clock, and I drew up the ridge 

 running parallel with the Gallagamma bridle-path. The 

 tracks of a big stag had been seen the evening before in the 

 close-cropped grass at the back of the cairn of stones mark- 

 ing Trig. Station, Horton Plains, No. i . Taking the Galla- 

 gamma road as one boundary, it is a narrow piece of jungle, 

 having a long stretch of patna and swamp lying east of it, 

 and running to the flat at the top of the Non Pareil pre- 

 cipices. The trailing bamboo which forms the chief under- 

 growth of this jungle was cold and wet, and hounds in 

 drawing scattered far and wide, and it was fully twenty 

 minutes before we heard a find. This seemed to be the 

 best part of a mile ahead, and only a single hound. Wait- 

 ing for further information, we heard hounds gather on the 



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