A Mixed Bag in Southern India. 337 



ago, two or three officers had been maltreated, tied on 

 hurdles, and carried through the blazing sun into the 

 city, for some infringement of the rules, or for having 

 fired at or shot an antelope. I had gone about a 

 quarter through this maidan when within ten yards 

 of me up got a cock florikan. As it rose straight into 

 the air I fired too quickly, and, shameful to say, 

 missed it clean with my right barrel ; but learning 

 wisdom by misadventure, when the bird commenced 

 its horizontal flight, the left barrel, a modified choke, 

 did its duty and down it came. As it fell, up got 

 the hen, but as I was unloaded off she went, to be 

 marked down near a scinde bund. Skirting the 

 top of the " bheel " I put up one more florikan, a 

 hen bird this time, and bagged it. Then for half an 

 hour I did not fire a shot. Having reached the ex- 

 tremity of the " bheel " I commenced to beat down 

 the other side, towards where the sand grouse had 

 fallen. Seeing some teal and duck, I allowed a 

 couple of the common partridges to go away un- 

 scathed, but leaving the beaters, with the exception 

 of a couple, and sheltering myself as much as possible 

 behind the bushes, I crept up as close to the former as 

 I could get without alarming them. They were 

 on a small ridge of partially dried up mud-bank, 

 pluming and cleaning themselves and all close to- 

 gether, affording the easiest of pot shots. I put 

 a cartridge with No. 8 shot in the right barrel and 

 had a No. 4 in the left. Letting drive, before the 

 light smoke cleared away there was a whirl, a quack, 

 quack, and up rose two pin-tailed ducks from behind 

 some bushes, and flying close together went across 

 me about twenty yards off. Firing just in front of 



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