BEARS & WATER-HOLE SHOOTING 



them know my whereabouts, being immediately answered, 

 to my surprise and amusement, by the bear, evidently from 

 a point a little ahead of me. Looking round again I saw 

 my old shikari, K., just arrived, on the broad grin, having 

 heard and understood, and immediately after my cousins 

 came along, so we went forward once more, coming very 

 shortly in sight of an ant-hill, from behind which we soon 

 heard heavy breathing and the sound of vigorous grubbing. 

 A moment after a bear appeared on the top of the ant-hill, 

 and my cousin Roy knocked it over at once with a shot 

 from his .303, when, to our surprise, another bear rushed 

 out from behind the ant-hill and fled through the forest 

 uttering wild yells, Gery Sharpe and Roy each sending an 

 ineffectual shot after it. 



Tom Wright and I once caught a young bear in the 

 forest, a good many years ago. We were on the track 

 of an elephant at the time, some 3 or 4 miles from 

 Topawewa, on the Hatamune side, and when making our 

 way through some forest we suddenly came upon a bear 

 squatting on a sloping fallen tree-trunk. 



Tom was dodging about to get a clear shot, when I, 

 very stupidly thinking the bear was on the point of bolt- 

 ing, fired hurriedly at it and missed it clean. It promptly 

 bolted, but as we soon heard awful yells from the forest 

 in the direction in which it had gone we thought it was 

 hit, and on making our way cautiously towards the noise 

 we found, to our surprise, a cub on the ground crying 

 piteously for " mama." It was quite a young one, about 

 1 8 inches long or so, and we conjectured it had been on its 

 mother's back all the time, but had got knocked off against 

 an overhanging branch as she bolted through the jungle. 

 We should have left it alone and waited for the mother 

 to return, but Tom was keen to keep the youngster, so we 



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