80 THE COMPLETE SPORTSMAN 



of those animals' strictly vegetarian propensi- 

 ties that he tied a small pig to a tree on the 

 outskirts of Calgary, and sat in the branches 

 for four whole days vainly awaiting the advent 

 of Bruin. An experience of a somewhat similar 

 character that befell me in 1894, while hunting 

 elephants in Nepal, was founded on an equally 

 disastrous, though perhaps more pardonable, 

 fallacy. 



Long before, as a small boy, I had happened 

 to visit the Zoological Gardens in London, and 

 was carrying a large bag of nuts to the monkey- 

 house when a passing elephant rudely snatched 

 the package out of hand, and proceeded to 

 swallow it whole with evident gusto. Misled 

 by the recollection of this incident, I had 

 barely reached the hunting-ground in Nepal 

 before I ordered my shikari to erect a 

 "machan" (or platform) in the branches of a 

 convenient palm-tree, at the foot of which I 

 proceeded to tether a large cask of monkey-nuts. 

 I then took up a commanding position on the 

 platform (or "machan"), and waited for a 

 well-knowTi local " rogue " elephant named 

 Rudolph to walk into my trap. 



I need hardly say that my stratagem failed 

 completely, and I soon discovered that the 

 wild elephant is not to be attracted by the 

 most succulent nuts in the world. Indeed, he 



