TAPIR. 141 



shoot from a platform in a tree an animal that can 

 be driven or tracked, and no one should drive an 

 animal when it can be tracked. 



Tigers, for instance, leave no impression upon the 

 ground, and, as they cannot therefore be tracked, 

 may be driven, or, failing the possibility of a drive, 

 may be shot from a tree. Pig and deer are not always 

 worth tracking, and may therefore be driven. But 

 tracking " still-hunting " is the highest form of 

 big -game shooting, and should not therefore be 

 discarded for the lower forms without strong and 

 sufficient reason. 



We knew that we could not come up with the tapir 

 before it lay down for its siesta, and admitted that it 

 was hopeless to attempt to surprise it in its sleep : 

 the only solution of the problem was, therefore, to 

 arrange our start so as to come up with it after it had 

 awakened again in the afternoon. But when I sug- 

 gested this to Malias, he pointed out some obvious 

 objections. Even if we arrived at the place where 

 the tapir had slept a few minutes after it had left it, 

 we should only have three hours of daylight for 

 tracking, and might easily be benighted. Of this, 

 however, I decided that we must run the risk : we 

 could take torches, and by this time we knew the 

 lay of the forest fairly well. Malias' next objection 

 was that even if we did get a shot and merely 

 wounded the animal, we should not have time to 

 follow up the tracks. His greatest objection, how- 

 ever, was one of which he said least, and that was 

 that it was not the custom to begin tracking in the 

 afternoon. In a land where they have a proverb, 



