IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 3G5 



prevent my sparing him, but that is quite another 

 thing. So he slinks off in peace ; but I fear I 

 should be the first to cry, " Beautiful ! " if the eager 

 bitches hit it off by themselves. I should have 

 hesitated to make this avowal, perhaps, if I had 

 not seen in the Field the other day a similar con- 

 fession by one of the most gifted of the hunting 

 correspondents of that paper, the "Phantom" of 

 the Belvoir. But with the deer tribe this feel- 

 ing must, I think, always be strongest, and with 

 the little ones most of all. The smallest I ever 

 shot, which has a Latin name much longer than 

 himself,* is known in Ceylon as a "mouse deer," 

 but he is rather larger than that animal, being, 

 in fact, when full grown, as large as a hare. But 

 of European animals the roe, in my opinion, is 

 the most deserving of sympathy, and fares worst 

 of all, being mostly shot with a " scatter gun," 

 even in Germany, where the maxim, " Zum Wild 

 dasz auf Schalen geht, gehort die Kugel" f obtains. 

 Meanwhile Dinah has come up, and is snuffing 

 the buck all over, but not offering to touch it, 

 never having been blooded, and apparently hunting 

 none the worse for it. I take up a fore leg, and 

 make an incision above the knee sufficient to draw 

 the extensor tendon through, and pass the other 



* Tragulus Stanleyanus. See Appendix, 

 f " For game with hooved feet 

 The bullet is meet." 



