INDIAN SHOOTING 209 



his visit to 3 A.M., as happened to the writer, who was at that 

 hour peacefully sleeping and never woke up, the entertain- 

 ment is mediocre. Allowing a native to perch on the same 

 tree is ruination to sport : cough he must ; besides, the jungle 

 man is unsavoury, and the evening air seems to make him 

 smell worse than usual. If a kill is found in the jungle and the 

 sportsman decides to sit over it, General Macintyre's plan is worth 

 trying ; i.e. take some men up to the tree, let them talk loudly, 

 or shout while the machan is being prepared, and then retire 

 talking or shouting, according as the tiger is supposed to be 

 bold or timid. He will very likely come at once, as their voices 

 die away, not to eat, but to see if they have removed the kill. 

 This often succeeds where professional skinners are in the 

 habit of saving what they can of the hides of kills. Lieu- 

 tenant-Colonel Fife Cookson, in his book ' Tiger Shooting in 

 the Boon and Ulwar,' gives a curious account of a tiger stalk- 

 ing a bait : 



Suddenly there emerged from underneath the trees a brownish- 

 yellow object which appeared about the size of a monkey, and for 

 a moment, in the failing light, I thought it was one. It darted 

 rapidly along the bare ground for about twenty yards at a time, 

 moving towards the bullock, and stopping at the end of each run 

 behind one of the tufts of grass about two feet high, over which it 

 peeped, then sinking down again and gliding forward as before. It 

 was now nearer, and by this time I could see that it was not one 

 of the monkeys ; but still I could not clearly make out what it was. 

 It reminded me of a very ugly, large, yellow and black mask at a 

 pantomime. I could see no legs or body. Now it reached a tuft 

 about forty yards from me, over which it also peeped, staring 

 intently at the bullock. By this time I was convinced that it was 

 the tiger, though it looked about the size and shape of a horse's 

 head. The curious appearance which the tiger had presented at a 

 distance of about seventy yards, in shape like the head of a horse 

 with the chin touching the ground, was no doubt owing to my 

 seeing his forepaws underneath and part of his back foreshortened 

 over the top of his head. What most particularly struck me was 

 the small object which the tiger appeared during the stalk. It 

 must be remembered that, although I perhaps saw a little of the 

 n. P 



