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TENT CLUBS 215 



get the help you could wish. In such case you must 

 redouble your own efforts. 



In dealing with poachers your zamindars or 

 native proprietors will help you. 



I have been told that a study of the nomadic 

 races of India is interesting and instructive. This 

 may be so : for myself the solitary fact that I know 

 to their advantage is that they are a disappearing 

 class. 



Curiously enough panther, which used to be 

 numerous, are fast disappearing from our Meerut 

 Kadir. For this I can offer no explanation. 



Hunting the Country 



You cannot take too much trouble with your 

 shikaries : be they good, bad, or indifferent, the 

 quality of their work will vary exactly in proportion 

 as you are keen or otherwise. A slack Hon. Sec. 

 means slack shikaries. 



I can give you little advice as to the caste of 

 men you are to employ, you must cut your 

 coat according to your cloth. They must be 

 local men, and they must have hunting knowledge. 

 Certain castes are hereditary shikaries and poachers : 

 your shikaries will probably have to be of one of 

 such castes. But the higher their caste the less 

 liable will they be to social pressure on the part of 

 those simple but engaging villagers, Ram Narain, 

 Mahomed Bux and Co., when they urge them to do 

 something that is not in the interests of sport. 

 Of course you must be sensible and not put caste 

 first. It is no use to try and turn a hereditary 

 billiard marker, for instance, into a keen and deter- 

 mined hunter of big game. But any one who has 



