ON BIG GAME SHOOTING GENERALLY 9 



here. The wind is the stalker's deadliest foe, and in many 

 of the countries known best to the writer (sheep countries for 

 the most part) there are days in each week when it is wiser to 

 stay in camp or hunt in the timber down below, rather than 

 risk disturbing game when the winds are playing the devil in 

 Skuloptin. Take your Indian's advice, and stop at home on 

 such days as these ; play picquet with your friend, look after 

 your trophies, or write up your diary. 



To any but the youngest hunters it seems superfluous to 

 say that you must hunt up or across the wind ; to remind 

 them of what a score of authorities have said before about 

 the lessons to be learnt from the drifting mist-wreaths ; to 

 warn them to take care that they see the beast before the 

 beast sees them, and to this end to be careful in coming 

 over a rise in the ground ; to put only just so much of their 

 head above the skyline as will enable them to see the country 

 beyond, and even then to bring that small part of their 

 body up very slowly and under cover of some friendly bush- 

 tussock or boulder. In eighteen years' hunting the writer 

 has met many men who might be forgiven for believing that 

 wild game never lies down, for whenever they have seen it, it 

 has been on its feet, looking at them. And no wonder, for 

 some of them would even ride up to the top of a bluff before 

 looking to see what lay in the valley beyond. And yet, even 

 after such a mistake as this, there is a chance sometimes of 

 retrieving your error if the wind is in your favour. If, for in- 

 stance, in riding from camp to camp you suddenly come in full 

 view of a stag, with a hind or two, walking in the early morning 

 along the ridge of the next bluff to that upon which you and 

 your Indians are riding, say a word to your men, and let them 

 either ride slowly on or stop absolutely stationary in the same 

 spot, whilst you slide out of your saddle and creep away on 

 your belly amongst the grass. Above all, they must keep in full 

 view of the stag, and if they do this, in nine cases out of ten the 

 stag will not notice that you have gone, and whilst he stares 

 intently at the strange objects which he knows to be at a safe 



