BULLET AND SHOT 



no one can tell when that instant will be), when 

 death-like silence must reign. I have even been 

 afraid of the beating of my own heart being heard 

 once a tiger came in view, but this, of course, was 

 unnecessary anxiety. 



I conceived, and began to put into execution just 

 before I left Mysore, an idea of my own (which 

 possibly some of my readers may be able to carry 

 out with success) for bagging tigers by watching 

 in large tracts of heavy forest, wherein beating 

 would be hopeless. My plan was to have several 

 medians erected on paths likely to be included in 

 the nightly wanderings of any tigers in the vicinity, 

 (they have a penchant for paths), and to tie cattle 

 out, one under each mechan, every beast being 

 bound by a strong rope, or should a tiger once cut 

 that, then fastened by a chain. I believe that this 

 plan would be very often successful, since the tiger 

 may be in the vicinity, and may even dog and watch 

 any men who approach his kill during the daytime, 

 more particularly in the large forests and it 

 would at least obviate the noise made in erecting 

 a mechan after the bait had been killed. 



If the wind be at all changeable at the time, a 

 second platform on the opposite side of the bait 

 might be simultaneously erected before commenc- 

 ing to tie the cattle, so that the sportsman could,, 

 after a kill, take his post in the one which appeared 

 to offer the best chance of success. 



It is not probable that a purely forest tiger, 

 seduced from the paths of virtue viz., game- kill- 

 ing by the obtrusion upon his path of a fine, fat, 



134 



