CHAPTER III. 



How, when, and where Game should be sought in Bengal Eapid De- 

 crease of Game Causes thereof A famous Hog and Buffalo Hunt- 

 ing Locality Immense Sounders of Wild Hog The Arms Act 

 Favourite Resorts of Game The " Soonderbuns" Good Shooting 

 Grounds much contracted The best Months and the best Localities 

 for the Pursuit of Game of all Kinds at the Present Time. 



A SKETCH of the climate and physical characteristics of the 

 country having been given, some suggestions may now be 

 offered as to the game to be found in it, and when and where 

 it should be sought; but this is no easy task, seeing how 

 rapidly changes follow upon an ever-increasing population 

 and a fast-widening area of cultivation, so that where buffa- 

 loes, deer, and wild hog were plentiful thirty years ago, a 

 stray boar only can be met with at the present day. In 1865 

 I was encamped with two companions on the skirts of a con- 

 siderable village in Orissa, some three or four miles only from 

 the sea. Seated comfortably in our long easy chairs after a 

 hard and successful day of buffalo and spotted deer-stalking, 

 we commanded at sunset an extensive view from our camp of 

 grass lands a couple of miles in breadth, lying between culti- 

 vated fields and the sandy hummocks which form a low and 

 uneven ridge immediately above high-water mark. Our vision 

 embraced many miles of this kind of country, but without 

 using our binoculars we could distinguish within a space of 

 two or three miles, at least three score wild buffaloes, and 

 between two and three hundred spotted deer feeding in the 

 open, either singly or in groups, which had come out from 

 the shelter of the bushes and tall grass, resorted to during the 



