A PLAGUE OF HORNETS 353 



howclah in the question, it becomes a more serious matter, as 

 the huge brute, maddened by the stings, often travels miles 

 over and through the most awful jungle ground before 

 bringing up. My colleague has, I have no doubt, seen and 

 experienced a good may mishaps of this kind. 1 



A few mornings afterwards, when camped out near the 



village of Chaukmaw with D and A , two officers 



from Bernardmyo, I came upon the tracks of a solitary bull 

 gaur within half-a-mile of camp. 



The ground at this time of the year was dry and hard, and 

 it was consequently rather difficult to walk along noiselessly 

 through the low dwarf-stunted bamboo shrubs, as the ground 

 was covered with dry, feathery bamboo leaves and stems 

 which cracked at every step. If any person, unacquainted 

 with the art of stalking, had been watching Moung Hpe and 

 myself, he would have come to the conclusion we had gone 

 mad, so cautiously and carefully did we pick our way along, 

 as if the treading on a single leaf or twig was a matter of life 

 and death. 



Those who have not experienced the pleasure and excite- 

 ment of stalking a large animal like a gaur in jungle, will 

 never understand the intense excitement and thrill of sup- 

 pressed expectation which is felt. 



It is not the shooting of the animal alone which is the 

 exciting part of it, but the getting within sight and shooting 

 distance of him without being discovered. But let me go 

 back to the gaur we were stalking. 



The animal had lain down twice, and the odour of gaur 

 and other signs well known to a hunter with any experience, 

 such as a number of flies hovering over the impression left 

 by the animal's body on the ground, smoking ordure, the 

 froth and bursting bubbles of its urine, pieces of freshly- 

 chewed vegetation, freshly-cropped bamboo twigs or tufts of 

 grass, fresh white juice oozing out of a root bruised by the 

 bison's hoof, showed us that the gaur was in the immediate 

 vicinity. Moung Hpe now warned me to be careful, as there 

 was little or no cover behind which to retreat in case of a 



1 I have been stung and chased by bees and wasps many times, but 

 don't remember coming across hornets. F. T. P. 



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