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AFTER BISON IN CHOTA NAGPORE. 



IT is not generally known that within a night's 

 railway journey of Calcutta there is a shooting pre- 

 serve where, on the payment of a fee of ten rupees a 

 month, permission to shoot game of any kind but 

 elephant can be had for the asking. The Saranda 

 Reserved Forest covers some seven hundred miles 

 of heavily-wooded country, alive with game of all 

 kinds buffalo, bison, deer, tiger, leopard, bear, pig, 

 huge snakes and game birds. It is easy of access, 

 as the Bengal-Nagpore Railway runs through it 

 from Goilkora to Rourkela, and no part of it is more 

 than twenty-five miles from a railway station. 

 Excellent food supplies too can be had from 

 Messrs. Kellner's Railway Refreshment Rooms at 

 Chakardarpore. This fine shooting ground was little 

 known, because the Forest Officers had come to 

 regard it as their own little preserve, where they 

 were sure of a bag whenever they were inclined for 

 a day's shoot ; or where a particular friend or two 

 could be invited down during the holidays and 

 treated to sport usually reserved for friends and 

 acquaintances of Cooch Behar and other Rajas with 

 shooting preserves. It is not long since Dr. P , 

 from Fort William, spent a few days here and 



