A Night by a Jungle Pool. 91 



breeze of dawn fanning my check, felt rather grubby after 

 the long warm hours of night in this close ravine. The 

 men were washing their mouths, noisy native fashion, in 

 the far pool, and grey jungle-cocks called defiance from 

 every side. Little parties of them and of the sombre spur- 

 fowl pattered in the leaves round the head of the pool. 



Sitting thus, a movement in the limbs of a tall tree 

 beyond the nala attracted my attention, and shortly two 

 dark lithe objects appeared, chasing each other up and 

 down the long branches, against the beautiful green flush 

 of the young day. At length they scurried up to the top- 

 most twig, whence one, detaching itself, sailed with a 

 steady downward flight straight over my head, and, curving 

 upwards again like a hawk, alighted softly on the gnarled 

 trunk of a kowa tree ; its mate, answering its curiously 

 harsh cry, followed suit, and, as they disappeared in the 

 grey twilight, it struck me that I had lost a chance of adding 

 a flying squirrel to my collection. Their flight was won- 

 derfully easy and graceful, and they must have covered 

 about fifty yards clear from tree to tree. 



A sluice in the clear water T and a bite of food was followed 

 by the matutinal cigarette, as the hair and splashes of blood 

 on the boulders were examined ; and then a start was made. 



The tracks led up-hill into an extremely thickly- 

 jungled little khora. We passed a spot where the tiger had 

 rolled in agony, while his erratic course and the bits of 

 white hair from his chest on any stumps or rocks in his 

 way showed us all was well. As the men picked up the 

 easily read trail, I kept a sharp look out ahead, rifle at the 

 ready ; and so we crept along, under some bushes, round a 

 rock here, through a tangle of small bamboos there, until at 

 last there he lay on his side, thirty yards away, apparently 

 quite dead. 



