16-4 SHIKAR SKETCHES. 



quivered in fantastic rays. They came straight 

 on for my post, and got within some ten yards of 

 me, when with an upward curl of her lip and a 

 twitching of the tip of her tail, that well-known 

 sign of irritation which always means mischief on 

 the part of the feline race, the tigress stopped to 

 listen ; and, as she turned her head back gazing 

 towards the beaters, I aimed at her neck between 

 its junction with the shoulders and the ears, and 

 fired. She dropped in her tracks without a groan, 

 and never stirred. It seemed as if in a twinkling 

 the ground had, as it were, been cut from under 

 her legs, at the same moment depriving her of 

 life with the speed of electricity. 



I only on one other occasion ever saw any 

 large animal pass so suddenly from life to death, 

 without even a twitch, or movement of a mus- 

 cle. That was also a tigress which I shot, and 

 oddly enough also the first tiger I got on my 

 next year's trip. I observed at this time a curi- 

 ous instance of how close wild animals will some- 

 times lie. This tigress was shot on the edge of a 

 nullah along which were some patches of grass. 

 In stepping on one of these, not six inches from 

 where the dead tigress's nose was resting, out 

 jumped a hare, which had remained hitherto 

 squatted in her form. 



To resume, however. At the shot, the cubs 



