224 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



protecting his offspring, being much occupied at his club and 

 other places. 



In April, when the wild-fig and the "mowah" invite 

 them to their favourite repasts, whole families of bears may 

 be seen in the bright moonlight, enjoying themselves to their 

 heart's content, and indulging in uncouth gambols and horse- 

 play ; the smaller cubs carried upon the shoulders of the 

 mothers, grinning and snarling from out the thick bunches of 

 strong black fur which grow upon the forepart of the back, 

 affording the youngsters good holds and safe asylums, from 

 which they descend now and then to play with others of their^. 

 own age, to hasten back on the slightest warning of danger 

 from man or beast. -.At such times the hunter who does not 

 consider his night's rest wasted in such adventures may obtain 

 easy shots at short ranges, but to the young and enthusiastic 

 it is not a sport to be commended. 



Being in a part of Manbhoom where bears were plentiful, 

 but not easily driven out of the hills, on which they dwelt in 

 deep caves opening into each other, I was induced once, when 

 the moon was nearly at the full, to watch some " mowah " 

 trees regularly visited by them in the warm April nights; 

 and the spot being less than a mile from camp, I sallied forth 

 after an early dinner, and, with two attendants, took up a 

 good position behind a parcel of rocks, from which half-a- 

 dozen trees in full bloom dropped their sweet petals. We 

 were suitably dressed in dark grey, and were armed; myself 

 with two double 10 and 12-bore rifles, and my "Shikaree" 

 and tracker with his long single-barrelled fowling-piece of a, 

 nondescript kind. The night was excessively sultry, and 

 hardly a leaf stirred as we watched patiently behind our cover ; 

 it was long, too, before we saw aught more than a jackal or 

 two, which loafed about between the trees picking up a few 

 fallen flowers, and then trotted off towards the village. By- 

 and-bye a pair of hyenas, descending from a rocky ridge close 

 at hand, slouched past, quite unconscious of our presence, and 

 these were followed by a panther from the same quarter, 

 which slunk away to a "bund," or water-reservoir, on our 



