34 ' Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



Shooting Tigers on Foot is exceedingly dangerous. 

 A tiger can hide behind a bush and be invisible 

 where you would think a hare could not conceal 

 itself. Again they will lie perdu until their pursuer 

 is within striking distance, when even if shot through 

 the heart, will at times have enough vitality left 

 to kill a dozen men. Only when the spine is 

 severed, or the brain penetrated, can one reckon 

 on a mortally-wounded tiger being harmless. Never 

 approach a tiger, even when in articulo mortis. 

 With one expiring effort he may deal a blow, which, 

 if it does not kill, will seriously maim. This is a 

 mode of sport which should be undertaken only by 

 experienced and cool hunters, who can rely on 

 unfailing nerves and accuracy of eyesight. They 

 who follow up a wounded tiger in thick bush, carry 

 their lives in their hands. I don't pretend that I 

 made a practice of this mode of tiger slaying, but 

 I have had to do it many times, and of the two* 

 I think I prefer running the risk attached to killing 

 a tiger on foot, to potting him off a tree. I will here 

 give a few experiences. 



News of a tiger having killed a grasscutter's tat 

 (pony) was brought in one day, and three of us sallied 

 out accompanied by thirty Ghoorkhas, those well- 

 known plucky little fellows who are amongst the 

 best of our soldiery in the East. The pony lay in a 

 slight depression in the hills (Cossyah) and it was easy 

 to trace the line its destroyer had taken. We at first 

 followed up in single file, Colonel H. leading, until 

 we came to an extensive elevated plain, covered with 

 grass from three to four feet high. We then formed 

 line, H. in the centre, B. on the right, and I on 



