240 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



peer out of his perch, while the barrels of his rifle rose gently 

 but just when I expected to hear the crack of the latter 

 it was lowered again, and his "sola" hat was withdrawn 

 behind the screen of leaves and twigs, and the previous dead 

 stillness was resumed. A few moments having passed thus, 

 I discerned moving dimly among the bushes on my left front, 

 a form which I took to be that of a panther, and its pace 

 increasing to a smart gallop soon showed it to be that of a 

 large male hyena. Changing the '500 for a single '360 

 Express, I struck the beast as it flew rapidly past me, and 

 laid it dead with a bullet through the heart within fifty paces. 

 A barking deer or two now dashed over the western ridge 

 unfired at, and we began to fear that the bears had escaped 

 by a flank movement to our right over the eastern ridge, and 

 that the drive for that day was over, the more so that neither 

 pea-fowl, jungle-fowl, or partridge rose before the beaters ; 

 but the sport was yet to come. 



Suddenly and silently two large bears came out of a 

 little gully immediately below me, up which they had crept 

 unseen in the thick undergrowth which covered it, and catch- 

 ing sight of me as I sat stooping low upon my cane stool, 

 charged directly at my " machan," uttering loud growls of 

 anger and surprise, offering beautiful shots as they ran up 

 tossing high their heads and snouts, and glaring fiercely with 

 their small malevolent eyes out of huge masses of black 

 bristling fur. 



With a heavy 12-bore Westley-Richards rifle in hand, 

 I waited till the pair were within eight or ten paces, and 

 then divided the two barrels between them, bringing down 

 the first and severely wounding the other, which raced up to 

 and past my " machan " with loud outcries. Taking up the 

 double 10-bore I clean missed No. 2 at a dozen yards, the 

 bullet grazing his back and throwing up a shower of earth 

 and stones beyond him, but with the left barrel I caught him 

 in the rear as he was on the point of disappearing over the 

 ridge behind me, and sent him howling down into the ravine 

 below, from which he was dragged up subsequently stone 



