BULLET AND SHOT 



bamboo clump, or a thick bush, be selected as its 

 prop. 



Directly one beat is over, the ladders can be 

 carried on to the next one, and be there quietly 

 placed in position. 



Where rocks are available as posts of observa- 

 tion during a beat, ladders are unnecessary, and 

 the former are even preferable to the latter, since 

 upon them the sportsmen can turn in any direction 

 they please, whereas only about two-thirds of a 

 circle can, in the case of a ladder, be covered by 

 each rifle. 



I have seen very few trees in which, without 

 the aid of a ladder, I could sit with any comfort, 

 and many tigers have escaped from other sports- 

 men entirely on account of the latter being in so 

 constrained a position that they either could not 

 fire at all, or, getting only very awkward shots, 

 missed. 



I have never seen the cushions for slinging in 

 trees, described by Colonel R. Heber Percy, in 

 the Badminton Library, as in general use by that 

 most sporting regiment, the Central India Horse, 

 but I should imagine that their instability, their 

 liability to rock when wind is blowing, and their 

 comparatively limited sphere of utility (they could 

 not, I take it, be employed where a lofty per- 

 pendicular trunk, a bamboo clump, or a bush, would 

 afford support for a ladder) would render them 

 less serviceable. The portability of the cushion 

 would appear to be its only advantage, and I 

 question the danger of an extra native accom- 



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