90 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



phenomenon which I have often in my young days 

 noticed when big game shooting. You stand waiting 

 for, perhaps, half an hour, till suddenly changing your 

 direction you see among the trees the object of your 

 search. So it was with me in this case. I looked to 

 my right, and there, looking straight at me in the 

 bushes, was a noble axis stag. I could see him so 

 distinctly that I could almost count the points on his 

 horns. I half raised my gun, but how unnaturally still 

 he stands. Am I deceived ? Surely not. Yet some- 

 thing tells me not to fire. At last I aim and whistle. 

 Not a movement ; and then the horns gradually 

 dissolve into branches, the outline of the limbs is made 

 by growing trees and a stump, the very sparkle of the 

 eye proves to be a dewdrop. It is almost difficult 

 now to distinguish the outlines which had so nearly 

 deceived me. 



Hark ! a shot from the beaters and a shout recall 

 me from my reflections on optical delusions, and I hear 

 something coming hastily through the bushes. A 

 spotted stag with his antlers laid back springs into 

 the path, only to go down with a broken shoulder. 

 Running up to him I perform the last rites. Before 

 the end of the beat a porcupine, with his ridiculous 

 quills rattling with wrath, bustles into the path. He 

 is good to eat and a deadly enemy to the young 

 cocoanut-trees, so he gets the contents of a barrel in 

 his head. 



I will not go on to recount the incidents of the 

 day. Suffice it to say that the bag was made up of 

 three " spotted deer " (Axis maculata), one " red deer," 



