Netting Game in Assam. 299 



entraps not only deer, but leopards, bears, tigers and 

 even ponderous buffaloes. I had read the " Old Forest 

 Ranger " as a boy, but never thought that I should 

 see the sport he so graphically described, yet in my 

 very first year in Assam I met a party going to hunt 

 with nets, and joined them. For many days before 

 the hunt commences, the natives mark down the game 

 they want deer, &c., for meat, but they also like to 

 capture young buffalo heifers, which they tame and 

 put along with their so-called tame herds, but which 

 are in reality more than half- wild. I promised them 

 Es. 20 if they showed me good sport. On this 

 they held a consultation, and said that day they could 

 only catch deer, as there was no other game in the 

 plain where their operations were to take place, but 

 if I would wait a few days, they would surround a 

 herd of buffaloes and perhaps a tiger or two, and show 

 me how they managed their work. I did not care 

 to see helpless deer cut, mangled, and speared, so 

 went after florikan and black partridge, and amused 

 myself by hunting over the adjoining country with 

 various success. On the third day after, a villager 

 informed me that they had surrounded a herd of 

 buffaloes and also some tigers, and proposed to 

 have the drive on the morrow. I was willing, so my 

 traps were soon on the elephants and I got into the 

 howdah and by 2 P.M. I was in a Nam-ghur, 1 

 close to a village some fifteen miles distant from my 

 former camp. Before daylight I was up, but the 

 villagers were even earlier, for over a hundred men 

 carrying nets had gone on ahead, while fully fifty 

 more followed with other nets, made of jute cord, the 

 1 These contain idols, but are also used as rest houses. 



