HUNTING & SHOOTING IN CEYLON 



Gal Oya gorge at Kauduluwewa, but I am glad to say it 

 did not succeed in catching it. 



To return to our shoot : nothing more occurred, after 

 the departure of the mongoose, until perhaps 8 P.M., at 

 which time the moonlight was very dim, and the weather 

 looked like rain, when we heard a bear " snuffing " in the 

 forest on our right. 



For some moments we heard the sound of its hard 

 breathing only, but soon the " pad-pad " of its flat feet 

 became audible on the dead leaves which strewed the 

 ground, and it came in sight shuffling along the water- 

 course at our very feet. As soon as it was in a favourable 

 position between us and the pool, Wilkins fired at it with 

 a buckshot charge, of which I had expressed considerable 

 mistrust. He hit it all right, and it gave vent to the usual 

 unearthly cries, but scrambled up the bank and disappeared, 

 yelling at intervals as it went. Wilkins was very sick about 

 this, and promptly loaded up with ball. Shortly after it 

 began to rain, not heavy, but persistent and penetrating. 

 We stood it as long as we could under our blankets, and 

 then got down and retired to the little shed, where we soon 

 had a roaring fire going, in front of which we lay stretched 

 and comfortable on our blankets, talking and yarning. All 

 thoughts of bears or any other visitants had vanished, when 

 suddenly we heard the well-known grunt and " wuff" of a 

 bear. We sat up and grabbed our guns, ready to hand and 

 loaded of course, when a second grunt gave me the clue as 

 to the direction from which the animal was approaching, 

 which was from the inside of the tank, and he was evidently 

 coming over the bund just behind us. I jumped up, ran 

 straight to the watercourse at the side of the puddle, hear- 

 ing the bear in the undergrowth on my left, and, stooping 

 down, peered through the darkness towards the pool, which 



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