228 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



to mine, and obtaining a clear line of fire, hit the bear with 

 a conical from the 12-bore Westley-Bichards, a powerful 

 rifle, and brought her down in a heap ; but quickly recovering 

 herself she resumed the pursuit, and when about twenty 

 yards from me received a second bullet through her lungs, 

 and collapsed at once. She proved to be a well-grown animal, 

 but not as quick on her legs as she might have been had she 

 not been wounded the night before, and become somewhat 

 stiff and weak w T hen put up again in the morning. 



I sat some part of a second night close to other 

 " mowah " trees, but got no shots at bears, and only one at 

 a spotted stag, which I killed at thirty paces by a lucky 

 shot through his throat, as he stood gazing in my direction, 

 with his head and antlers in velvet thrown back ; the crisp 

 bright moonbeams striking full upon his swelling white 

 throat and dun chest. He was accompanied by three hinds, 

 which vanished like ghosts at cock-crow at the flash and 

 report of rny rifle. On my way back to camp, a pair of 

 hyenas and a ratel crossed my path, but were not fired at, 

 as not worth a shot. The latter is by no means rare in 

 Chota Nagpoor, Sarithalia, and parts of Gya and Shahabad, 

 but is not often seen, being a purely nocturnal animal, and 

 living underground, and it is in consequence quite unknown 

 to many who have long been residents of the country, and 

 much engaged in its sports. 



I have related the sport obtained during parts o 

 two nights in succession, but they must not be accepted as 

 fair average examples, any more than a man going out on 

 the pad of a steady elephant into an Assam plain on a clear 

 moonlight night and shooting a rhinoceros, a bull buffalo, or 

 a marsh-deer stag or two, can fairly quote his experience 

 as the average sport to be had in that way ; on the con- 

 trary, I have not found night-shooting to pay in the end, 

 and am not partial to it. Now that I am an old hand, I 

 would not sit up for anything less than a tiger, or for a 

 gour over a salt-lick or water. Often while watching in trees 

 bears may be heard and seen dimly, and yet no shots ob- 



