1 20 Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 



and game animals have their wildest range to 

 wander over; and lastly, the season when the 

 higher slopes take autumnal tints of red and 

 yellow, and the ibex are found comparatively 

 low down taking advantage of the last of the 

 summer grazing. This is the time when the 

 old bucks are "in pride of grease," and it is 

 consequently perhaps the favourite shooting-time 

 among shikaris, though, of course, their work 

 is easiest of all in the spring, when the ibex, 

 ravenous after their short winter commons, come 

 low down for the first blades of fresh green grass 

 and wormwood. 



Ibex having been seen, there are two methods 

 of proceeding, according to the excellence of the 

 hunter's hounds. If they are of the best breed, 

 staunch and well-trained, he can slip them at the 

 bottom of the nullah and then, so to speak, go 

 and breakfast at leisure, certain that the early 

 morning's downward flowing air will have brought 

 news of the ibex to the hounds, and that by the 

 time he has finished he will find one or two 

 of the herd rounded up into some precipice, to 

 which he will be attracted by his hounds' bay- 

 ing. This is the ideal. 



The real is more often something like this. 

 The hunter, after picking up his ibex, takes his 

 hounds well above them and sights them before 



