ARTIFICIAL SALT-LICK. 49 



and the size of tlie animals from the tracks and their 

 appearance. 



Having in this manner discovered that the deer have 

 become regular nightly visitors, he proceeds to prepare an 

 ambush within a few yards of this artificial salt-lick, taking 

 care, as far as possible, not to make it in the direction of the 

 prevailing wind. He generally digs a hole in the ground, or 

 in a bank should there be one conveniently near, and over 

 the entrance makes a careful covering of grass-sods or earth, 

 leaving only a small aperture to look and shoot through. By 

 this arrangement the deer have not the means of so easily 

 winding him as when merely hidden behind a screen of 

 bushes or of cut boughs ; and also, if there is no moonlight, 

 an animal's body can be seen in dark relief above him against 

 the sky. The result is what may be expected. As the native 

 shikaree seldom wastes a charge of his precious ammunition, 

 the lord of the herd, or at any rate the largest hind, generally 

 bites the dust. 



I have tried this artifice, but without much success ; for 

 although I heard the deer come quite close enough to the 

 har to prove the efficacy of the plan, they generally managed 

 to get wind of me in some manner which prevented my get- 

 iting a shot. And it requires such an amount of patience, 

 and sometimes endurance on a bitter cold night, that the 

 doubtful result hardly repays one for the trouble, not to 

 mention its being rather a dirty way of doing business. On 

 one occasion, however, I had the luck to get a chance at 

 one of the finest jurrow I ever had the pleasure of pulling 

 Itrigger on. 



An old Goorkha, a shikaree whom I was in the constant 

 habit of employing, was the first to initiate me in the mys- 

 iteries of preparing one of these artificial salt-licks for deer. 

 Old Jeetoo was about the best shikaree I ever came across. 

 He was one of those men who talk little and do much, and 

 had such a quiet business-like way of doing things withal. 

 He was like a steady old hound, for his voice was seldom 



D 



