INCIDENTS IN TIGER SHOOTING 



detour, and we found, in front of the thicket whence 

 the sound had proceeded, a small piece of perfectly 

 open ground, in advance of which lay a dense patch 

 of sigee thorn which came nearly down to the 

 ground, and so allowed of no view. As we 

 approached this second thicket, a deep growl 

 sounded from under it ; I told the men to stand 

 firm, and they behaved well. 



In front of the impenetrable cover flowed the 

 stream, and I put the men up trees in a semi- 

 circle, the extremities of which touched its banks, 

 and directed them to give me time to cross its 

 bed and to ascend the further bank, after which 

 they were to shout, and fire shots from a shot- 

 gun which I had placed in the hands of one of 

 their number. 



I crossed and took up a position on the further 

 bank, and the shouts and shots rang out without 

 any effect ; and we then found, on examining the 

 thicket, that the tiger, after growling at us, had 

 crossed the stream and gone on, and that he was 

 therefore not in the beat at all when our arrange- 

 ments were completed. Under the thorny canopy, 

 we found several blood-stained forms where he 

 had lain during the previous night ; and he must 

 have moved from this thicket to the one from 

 which we heard him moving off (and at which 

 we had left his tracks on the previous afternoon), 

 after lying for a long time probably all night 

 in the former. Evidently he was desperately 

 wounded. We followed his trail for some distance 

 after this, and found that he had crossed a small 

 L 145 



