TIGERLAND 



grass covers, but we had hardly settled ourselves when we 

 heard shouts of delight from the line, and soon made out 

 the words, "He is dead." However, we stood fast for 

 awhile, thinking he might only be wounded, and perhaps 

 get up and attempt to slink past us. Presently, however, 

 one of the beating elephants came up through the grass 

 and its mahout informed us that the leopard was lying 

 stone dead a foot or two from where he had entered the 

 jungle. Never thinking for a moment that I had hit him, 

 as the shot I had was a very difficult one owing to the pace 

 the animal was going at and the very transient view I had 

 had of him, I congratulated H - on his good luck, and, 

 putting the leopard on one of the pad elephants, sent him 

 off to camp, while we went on beating for partridge and 

 floriken and anything else that we might find. 



About 6 p.m. we returned to camp, and, of course, 

 proceeded at once to inspect our spoil and to superintend 

 the skinning, and we then discovered that there was only 

 one bullet hole through the neck, about a couple of inches 

 behind the root of the left ear. The hole was so small 

 that we doubted whether it could have been produced by 

 a '500 Express bullet, so we cut the neck open and to my 

 surprise and delight found embedded in the vertebra of 

 the neck the small L.M. bullet with the base quite perfect, 

 but with the nose, and three-fourths of the rest of the 

 bullet, beautifully mushroomed. Close to this also was 

 the nickel-silver casing w r ith the base of the case intact, 

 but the upper portion distorted and sticking out at right 

 angles, like the blades of a screw propeller, with the edges 

 as sharp as a knife. Examining the wound further we 

 found that although the hole at which the bullet had 

 entered was no larger than the diameter of the bullet, from 

 that point to where the latter and its case were found was 

 literally bored out into a canal about 1 J inches in diameter, 



with the flesh on all sides reduced to a pulp. H was 



astonished at the appearance of the wound, and said that 

 were it not for the conclusive evidence afforded by the 

 presence of the bullet and nickel casing found inside it, 

 he could not have believed that such a small and harmless- 

 looking projectile, fired from such a " pop-gun " of a rifle, 

 could possibly have inflicted so ghastly an injury, and from 

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