82 THE COMPLETE SPORTSMAN 



themselves in iron cages or burglar-proof meat- 

 safes in some suitable locality, in the hope that 

 lions and tigers may mistake them for the kids 

 or pigs which they are temporarily understudy- 

 ing. It requires considerable courage to sit 

 out in the jungle on a dark night, and watch 

 the efforts of various carnivorous creatures to 

 obtain possession of what appears to them to 

 be a potential item in their nightly bill of fare, 

 especially if that item happens to be oneself. 

 Not seldom, indeed, does it occur to a man in 

 such circumstances that he had far better have 

 remained at home in his comfortable bed; and 

 when he finds a full-grown leopard sedulously 

 picking the padlock of his cage, or inserting a 

 long talon through the bars and tickling the 

 inmate's ribs with playful assiduity, he is still 

 more apt to regret his temerity. Well is it for 

 him at such a moment if his hand be steady 

 enough to point the rifle at some vital spot in 

 his visitor's anatomy before the creature's blind 

 gropings are rewarded with success. 



The Indian practice of snaring crocodiles by 

 means of a hook baited with pork and attached 

 to a long chain, which the greedy creature gorges 

 and then retires to the bed of the river to digest, 

 is another form of so-called " sport " which 

 I cannot help deploring, demanding as it does 

 nothing but brute strength on the part of the 



