Pelts 



received his quietus and was dead enough. 

 We came upon him, lying on his side in the tall 

 grass, a fitting pall for the great cat. 



In no other sport save shooting does the old 

 adage, ' There's many a slip ' come in so often. 

 One of B -'s bullets, a '577 Express which there 

 was no mistaking, had hit the tiger. The game 

 beast, almost knocked to pieces with the terrific 

 shock, had come gallantly on to me for all he 

 was worth, and as I fired had dropped dead. 



It is curious what an abject cur the tiger is, 

 or some of the breed are, on occasions. I re- 

 member we had a tight and exciting time with 

 a cur of the first water one morning. The beat 

 was a somewhat difficult one to manage, as it 

 consisted of a sea of tall grass on one side of 

 a river-bed, flanked to the left by a wide open 

 stony portion of the nullah bed, with the river 

 itself flowing down a' narrow channel on the 

 farther side, and on the right by a cart-road, 

 from the off-side of which sprang a low sal 

 forest-covered hill. The grass merged ahead 

 on the right into a small patch of dense forest, 

 the under cover consisting, wherever the trees 

 left sufficient space and light, of the dry, tall, 

 thick elephant grass. The grass to the left of 

 the forest gradually narrowed, until it formed 

 a small, dense, triangular patch of some 20-30 

 yards in length, and about double that, perhaps, 

 in breadth at the far end of the forest, beyond 



Q 225 



