HUNTING & SHOOTING IN CEYLON 



I knew the hind had got a very good start of the pack 

 when she crossed the open. The bay was in a deep hollow, 

 whence sound could only reach us faintly ; but even so, I 

 began to fear the worst. The pack had run up against a 

 leopard, and as new hounds will nearly always do, until 

 they learn to dread them, they had bayed him. 



I lost no time in crossing the river, and just as I was 

 entering the forest on the other side I met Petrel, bleeding 

 terribly, literally cut to pieces, and a little farther on Bar- 

 man, looking very sick. I took these two hounds back to 

 the river and washed their wounds, and had them carried 

 straight home to the rest-house. 



I then went back to the forest with my gun and 

 searched high and low for hours as near as I could tell 

 where the "bay" had occurred, but not another hound 

 did I meet, nor a sign of the leopard did I see. 



Upon reaching the rest-house I found Petrel had died 

 on the way home. 



Barman died two days afterwards, and Fiery, Pilot, 

 Random, and Ginger were never seen again, bringing up 

 the tale of slaughter by leopards in one season to 8 J couples 

 practically a whole pack wiped out. 



It has been objected by some critics that in elk hunting 

 hinds and fawns are killed indiscriminately. This is not a 

 fair statement, and upon looking over my hunting diaries 

 of some twenty years, I find invariably that the total of stags 

 killed in a season has exceeded that of hinds very consider- 

 ably, in some years being more than double the number. 



Fawns, curiously enough, are seldom killed. I have 

 saved a few when bayed by hounds in water, both by 

 carrying the little beast out and turning it down near the 

 jungle whilst hounds are being led away in an opposite 

 direction, and by coupling up the pack. 



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