HUNTING & SHOOTING IN CEYLON 



heard deer barking in the distance ; a little while after 

 more deer barked nearer, and then nearer still monkeys 

 chimed in with their deep guttural barks and grunts. 

 This went on ("passing the word forward," so to speak) 

 for quite twenty minutes, and at last J heard the firm, soft 

 tread of the leopard on the dry, dead leaves of the under- 

 growth making to pass just in front of my tree. Suddenly 

 he stopped, however, before coming into sight, turned from 

 his track and came straight to my tree, still hidden by the 

 small undergrowth, and had a look and a sniff at a box of 

 tinned things we had left at the foot of the tree. I could 

 just make out bits of him, and tried to get my gun down 

 between the sticks of the " messa " for a shot, but, unfortu- 

 nately, my movement caused a tiny " creak " of the stage 

 and away he went on the instant, not coming to this 

 water-hole again that night. 



The last occasion occurred recently during a bear- 

 shooting trip with a friend. We were watching at a 

 rock-hole from a tree stage at one side of the rock, 

 which was a huge mass of rounded gneiss some 40 or 50 

 feet high with a peculiar deep-water pool like a bath at one 

 side of it, and our stage commanded a grand view of the 

 rock and all approaches to the pool. Moonlight was 

 brilliant, but nothing came until 9 P.M., when a leopard 

 walked quietly across the rock from our left and lay down 

 like a dog just in front of us. My friend was rather a 

 novice at the game, so I gave him the shot, and he made 

 a clean miss. The leopard sprang up, ran about 10 yards 

 up the rock and stood, back to us, looking at us over his 

 shoulder, so then I took a quick shot at him but missed 

 just as badly as did my companion, upon which the leopard 

 cantered quietly down the rock and disappeared. 



I had an interesting experience once when watching 



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