Jungle By -Ways in India 



paid to the rifles. One will probably be at full 

 cock, and carelessness in this respect in the howdah 

 or on the pad is unpardonable. 



Shooting from the howdah or pad is also an 

 art which has to be learnt, as the novice will find 

 that he is always apt to fire over the animal at 

 first. In snap-shooting one has also to instinctively 

 allow for the fact that the elephant is on the 

 move. 



Minor worries on an elephant, which sometimes 

 assume the proportions of major ones, are due to 

 insects. In Northern India jungles you must 

 always keep in remembrance the big bee (Apis 

 dorsata). It is not uncommon for the elephant to 

 blunder in to one of the great combs attached by 

 this bee to the under side of some branch or in- 

 clined tree stem in a dense thicket. The bees will 

 be out on you like a knife when disturbed in this 

 fashion, and nothing but immediately rolling your- 

 self up in a blanket, which it is wise to carry, will 

 avoid bad stings. 



That vicious brute the red ant ((Ecophylla 

 smaragdina) has also to be borne in mind. He 

 builds nests made of green leaves stuck together 

 up in the trees, and one is apt to knock against 

 them and get a shower of ants over the exposed 

 portions of the body before one has realized what 

 is the matter. A clean and hurried strip is then 

 the only way to get rid of them, and this must 

 be done promptly, for their nips are most painful. 



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