104 IN THE INDIAN JUNGLE. 



when the animal is hit the poisoned rag enters 

 the wound with the arrow-head and the shaft drops 

 off. The animal dies within a few hours, and we 

 easily trace it by the blood and broken twigs. 

 Bears are the most difficult to kill. They will 

 sometimes live a whole day with the poisoned arrow 

 inside them. Tigers die very soon. We some- 

 times use cobra poison, but it is difficult to get. I 

 keep two cobras from which I take the poison 

 once a month. If I take the poison oftener it 

 is of no use. I cannot take the poison while the 

 cobra is changing his skin, which he does once 

 every two months or so. He has no poison then, 

 and won't bite the plantain. How do I get the 

 cobra's poison ? Why, I take a ripe plantain 

 and tie it to the end of a stick, and with this I 

 irritate the cobra until he bites the plantain. If 

 he turns his head when he- bites, I know the poison 

 has come. He sometimes bites without giving a 

 twist of his head, and then no poison comes. We 

 rub the plantain over the rag, just as we do the 

 dakara. A plantain with two bites in it is enough 

 for a large tiger. Cobra poison is the best, as 

 it never spoils ; dakara gets weaker the longer 

 you keep it. Dakara does not grow here ; it comes 

 from Calcutta. How do we know where to set 

 our spring bows ? Huzoor, you know that a 

 tiger never crashes through the brushwood. That 

 would alarm the game. He always takes paths 

 through the jungle. He will not take a narrow 

 path. He sticks his whiskers out straight, and 

 with these he feels the brushwood and knows if 



