SHOOTING SEASON IN BENGAL. 17 



sleep in the warm sunshine. Snipe-shooting is still good 

 upon the lowest grounds, in the grass and weeds of drying 

 swamps, and on the borders of lakes and stagnant water- 

 courses. Duck and teal-shooting in dug-outs and canoes, on 

 great sheets of water fringed and crossed by reeds and rushes, 

 is now excellent, and will continue to be so till the middle of 

 March, by which time the water will have fallen too low for 

 even such shallow craft, except in the water-ways. Hog- 

 hunting and coursing may be had on " churs," or open plains 

 and islands on and bordering the great rivers. Deer and 

 tiger-shooting from the backs of elephants is possible in a 

 limited way in the lighter bush and grass jungles ; but 

 elephants carrying howdahs cannot penetrate the tall and 

 stout reeds, or the rank giant grasses of the heavier coverts, 

 which however are traversed in all directions with ease by 

 the deer, the wild hog, the tiger, the buffalo, and the rhino- 

 ceros, along alleys formed by them below the leafy tops, 

 but which are too low for the passage of elephants surmounted 

 by howdahs. By the end of December a trip to the sea -face 

 of the Soonderbuns is tolerably pleasant, but it should be 

 made in good sea-going boats or small steamers, when shots 

 may be obtained at spotted deer and wild hog, probably at a 

 tiger, and possibly at a rhinoceros or two ; but a more pro- 

 fitable trip may be made to the mouth of the Damrah river 

 by steamer from Calcutta, and back the same way after 

 spending a week or ten days on the coast and adjacent islets, 

 among the spotted deer, antelope, and wild fowl of all kinds, 

 with the remote chance of meeting with a tiger or a bull 

 buffalo ; and if the visitor have the good fortune to induce 

 Mr. C. (a resident of Chandhalu, and a keen sportsman) 

 to accompany him, he ought to secure a satisfactory bag 

 of a miscellaneous sort. 



January brings no change ; only cooler days and colder 

 nights. The sport to be had then is the same as in the pre- 

 ceding month, but is better, since the rice crops being entirely 

 harvested, the ground is firmer for riding. Game of all kinds, 

 both furred and feathered, is in the very best condition ; the 



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