HUNTING & SHOOTING IN CEYLON 



that his heart was visible ; and just beyond him Barmaid, 

 also slightly eaten, and a few yards farther on Jolliment, 

 with his neck broken, but no visible wounds. 



That evening at 7 o'clock poor old Lifter crawled 

 in, with twenty-four wounds on his chest and neck. He 

 died on the following day, after four seasons of splendid 

 work in the Horton Plains, Ambawella, Pattipola, and 

 Bopatalawa forests, as well as ten days' hunting in the 

 Island of Rodriguez, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. 

 Mischief died of her wounds the same day, making a total 

 of three couple of good hounds killed, during one run, by 

 presumably one leopard. My previous trip to the Horton 

 Plains had cost me three hounds killed by leopards, making 

 4^ couple in two successive trips to those happy hunting 

 grounds. I have always regretted that I did not watch 

 over the carcases of my dead hounds, on the chance of a 

 shot at the foul beast which had destroyed them ; but it 

 was low, stunted forest, and the undergrowth was so dense 

 that not one of the carcases, though lying so close together, 

 was within sight of the next. Added to this a cold, 

 drizzling rain was falling, and I have had some very chilling 

 experiences of watching for leopards on the Horton Plains. 

 I placed a few grains of strychnine in the bodies, but with 

 the exception of Flatterer, not one had been touched when 

 we visited the spot on the following morning. I have 

 hopes, however, that as I inserted four grains of the poison 

 in Flatterer's neck, and four more in his heart, the leopard 

 ate sufficient in between the two places to render more flesh 

 of any kind superfluous to him. The brute did not touch 

 the poison itself; but strychnine placed in the heart of a 

 freshly killed animal might charge the adjacent flesh suffi- 

 ciently with poison to cause a leopard's death. 



Three months after this I was the victim of another 



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