INDIAN SHOOTING 263 



of the line on a flank, or, if possible, post yourself on foot so as 

 to command a nullah leading from one patch of grass to another, 

 or the dry sandy channel separating two islands. This, however, 

 is a matter of some risk, as, if hogdeer aie plentiful, the firing 

 from the line becomes fast and furious, and unless you are on 

 an elephant the guns in the line cannot see where you are. 

 Shooting from a howdah is an art which requires practice, and 

 many a good rifle-shot on foot finds hmiself missing hideously 

 when he first tries shooting off an elephant. A very sound rule 

 is, never to put your head dow^n on the stock, but keep it well up, 

 look hard at the beast's shoulder and see as much of its body 

 as possible over the muzzle of the rifle : the range is generally 

 short and nearly all misses go high. Shooting hogdeer from 

 elephant has been likened, with some confusion of ideas, to 

 shooting rabbits from a pitching collier in a gale of wind in the 

 Bay of Biscay. 



Hogdeer are often put up when pigsticking in grass, and 

 dve capital runs. 



Major FitzHerbert had a quaint bit of sport in 1874. He 

 slipped a brace of dogs at a stag and rode after them ; in his 

 own words : 



The stag made for the river, and as the ground got more and 

 more open the bitch caught sight of him, made a rush and 

 soon got up to him ; she laid hold and pulled him over, but as the 

 dog would not help her, the stag shook her off and went away 

 again. When she came up to him again, he stood at bay with 

 head down and bristles raised like a miniature red deer of Land- 

 seer's, but broke away when I came up. Once he charged the 

 bitch and knocked her over : he stood at bay two or three times, 

 but I never could get a spear into him for fear of hurting the dogs ; 

 at last one time as he was breaking bay I came up, and he 

 charged me with such force as to break one of his horns clean off 

 against the spear ; however, I stuck him in the spine and rolled 

 bim over. 



The fawns are always spotted. The stags seem very ir- 

 -gular in shedding their horns, and deformed heads are not 

 uncommon. 



