SHAM SHIKAREES. 301 



wages ; accordingly, their game is to watch and follow those 

 sportsmen who look up snipe for themselves, or to worm out 

 of their attendants the information, which is promptly con- 

 veyed to their masters in Calcutta, who hasten to reap where 

 they have neither ploughed nor sown. One of this fraternity 

 has often attached himself to me quite uninvited, and 

 annoyed me with his silly exclamations of " Mark ! mark ! '" 

 whether the snipe rose within or beyond range, as if I could 

 not see the bird myself at least as well as he could ; but this, 

 I suspect, is taught him by his employer, who possibly may 

 be too indolent to mark the bird himself ; and it may also- 

 form the principal foundation to support his title of " Shi- 

 karee." Judging by their bearing and look of self-importance > 

 I have reason to believe that these men are treated with great 

 respect and deference by their " sporting " employers ; and 

 their astonishment and disgust at being ordered to be silent, 

 and to pick up the birds only, is amusing in the extreme. 

 However, no doubt they are a necessary product of the times, 

 and supply a want felt in certain quarters. 



Having one season during the months of September and 

 October, shot a good deal in the neighbourhood of the Ny- 

 hatty Railway station, a relation and I discovered, some three 

 miles from it, a splendid snipe ground in prime condition 

 rather late one afternoon, and after loading our sticks with 

 twenty-six couple in the course of a couple of hours, we 

 returned home, with the full intention of paying it an early 

 visit and making off it a grand bag. On the second morning 

 afterwards, on reaching about ten o'clock our precious dis- 

 covery, we found upon it two guns hard at work, banging 

 away merrily, and it subsequently transpired that one of 

 these pseudo-" Shikarees/' had got news of our find from a 

 porter who carried a basket of creature comforts, and promptly 

 conveying the same to his employers, had brought them on 

 the ground betimes to forestall us, thus playing the " pro- 

 vider " to the two tigers in possession of our ground. Leaving 

 the poachers to enjoy themselves to their fill, we trudged 

 onwards several miles bagging only two or three couple of 



