ON BIG GAME SHOOTING GENERALLY 1 
~ had taken a snap shot at the grey thing which you saw moving 
in the bushes. But, on the other hand, instead of killing a bear 
or a buck, it is much more likely that your snap shot will wound 
some poor devil of a hind, who will sneak away to die in 
anguish somewhere in the thick covert where none but the 
jackal will benefit by her death ; or else you may do as I once 
actually did—hit a bear in the seat of his dignity, thereby 
arousing his very righteous indignation in a way that is dangerous 
to the offending party ; or, worse still, you may (as I xear/y did) 
fire upon your own gillie or friend, whose moccasined footfall 
is very like a bear’s tread, and whose sin in wandering across 
your beat would be too severely punished by death. 
In all seriousness, it has always seemed to me that any man 
who, whilst out shooting, kills another in mistake for game de- 
serves to be tried for his life, unless he be avery young beginner— 
‘and young beginners should hunt by themselves. There is no 
excuse for shooting a man. If the shooter could not tell that 
that at which he fired was a human being, much less could he 
tell at what part of his beast he was shooting, and a random 
shot ‘into the brown’ of a beast is unsafe, unsportsmanlike, 
and brutally cruel. 
Finally, do not be tempted to use complicated sights in still 
hunting. When you have followed deer under pines heavy 
with snow, through sal-lal bush which looks like deep billows 
of the same, only to find, the first time, that your Lyman sight 
is down, and the second time that though erect the peephole is 
full of ice, you will recognise the merits of a Paradox with the 
_ simplest sights for wood shooting in any weather as thoroughly 
_ as the writer does, and whilst admitting the merits cf the 
Lyman sight for long-range shooting in the open, eschew all 
_ but such simple sights in timber. 
There are, of course, other ways of hunting big game 
_ besides those already dealt with. Almost any game may be 
_ driven, from lions in Somaliland and tigers in the Terai to 
_ chamois in the Alps and sheep in North America, and there is 
no doubt that sufficient excitement and a good deal of sport 
