320 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



When you reach your place, get your wind before you look 

 over ; you will see perhaps fifteen or twenty ibex in front of 

 you ; don't be in a hurry ; make sure that you have really 

 selected the best head for your first shot, and take pains to get 

 it home. When you fire, the smoke will hang in your eyes, 

 and you will dimly see the flock scatter. Keep your head now 

 don't show yourself ; and if you are in about the right place, 

 a little above, but nearly on a level with the flock, and about 

 eighty yards off, not closer, you will probably see the flock 

 walking up the hillside, occasionally turning round to gaze 

 at the 4o-incher lying dead below them. With cartridges 

 handy, and steady shooting, you should add the next two or 

 three best heads to your score. You have no shikari at your 

 elbow nudging you, and whispering advice just as you are going 

 to fire, starting off the flock by showing himself immediately 

 after your first shot, and finally, when you have got all the heads 

 you care for out of the flock, imploring you to shoot a worth- 

 less little brute for the coolies to eat. Call him up when you 

 have finished, and let him cut the throats of the slain to make 

 them lawful eating, low down the neck, so as not to spoil the 

 skin for stuffing, and if he objects, tell him he may do without 

 meat. One of the greatest mistakes that all shikaries make in 

 stalking is trying to get too close to the game. It stands to 

 reason, in a country infested by leopards or ounces, that if a 

 beast catches sight of the top of one's head within five and 

 twenty yards, he will bolt at once, whereas at eighty yards 

 distance he feels at all events safe from a sudden rush, and will 

 stop to gaze. 



After the end of June it is practically waste of time trying 

 for ibex. There is grass everywhere, and to escape the gadflies 

 and be out of the way of the flocks of sheep and goats that are 

 driven up into many of the best nullahs in summer, the ibex 

 retire to the highest peaks in the neighbourhood, and rarely 

 descend to ground where there is any chance of getting near 

 them. 



