CHAPTER VIII. 



TIGER SHOOTING IN SOUTHERN INDIA AND 

 HINTS TO BEGINNERS 



EVERYONE fond of big game shooting is very 

 keen to bag a tiger whenever the opportunity 

 may offer, and the rarity of the animal only en- 

 hances the sportsman's anxiety to succeed in each 

 attempt. 



As a matter of fact, however, considered as a 

 form of sport, tiger shooting cannot be compared 

 with bison and elephant shooting, or with sambur 

 and ibex stalking on the hills. The reason for this 

 is that the sportsman's own part in it is so very 

 small a one, by reason of the number of accessories 

 it may be elephants as in Bengal, or beaters as in 

 Southern India which are required, and without 

 which, unless he should happen a very rare piece 

 of good fortune indeed to meet with one acci- 

 dentally when stalking in the jungle or on the hills, 

 or to successfully sit over a kill, he has no chance 

 whatever of bagging a tiger. 



Of howdah-shooting from elephants, as practised 

 in the expanses of reed and high grass in Bengal, 

 Nepaul, and Assam, I have had no personal ex- 

 perience, though my father (who was in the Bengal 



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