MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 329 



seemed to me that no one should go out into the jungle with the avowed 

 purpose of shooting, or endeavouring to shoot, tigers (and ".who is there, 

 now-a-days, who has not done so?) unless fully prepared (to use a colloquial 

 but very expressive phrase) to " see the show through "—by which I mean, 

 incur all personal risk and shrink from no amount of personal exertion, 

 when by so doing a wounded animal may be brought to bag. There are 

 cases, no doubt, when a combination of circumstances may render it almost 

 impossible to carry out this principle in its entirety ; but in that part of 

 India, at all events, to which reference is made in this article, viz., the 

 southern part of the Central Provinces and the country lying generally 

 between the Tapti and the Godavery, such cases must be rare during the 

 hot weather — at any rate when so much of the jungle is burnt or dried up. 

 Before finally dismissing the subject of using buffaloes in the manner 

 indicated, I would add a word of warning to those desirous of trying the 

 experiment. It is : — Do not, when following the herd, keep too close behind 

 them, as in the event of a sudden stampede you are likely to be run over ; by 

 keeping near trees, usually to be found scattered about, this danger may 

 be avoided. 



Let us now consider the case of a tiger which has been wounded, perhaps 

 early in the day, so that there are still some hours of daylight remaining. 

 The shikari is naturally unwilling to go back to camp without at least making 

 some further attempt ; the thought that perhaps the tiger may be lying dead 

 within a few yards has lured on many a man before now, or even if he has 

 learnt by experience to mistrust all evidence, in the case of a wounded 

 animal, which points to death until he has actually pulled its tail or satisfied 

 himself in some other way that there is no question about its demise being 

 a reality, still it is tantalising to know that the animal for which you 

 have perhaps toiled hard and toiled often is now lying more or less " done 

 for " within a short distance — to know that perhaps on the morrow by the 

 time buffaloes have been collected and all arrangements made for a thorough 

 search, you may only find a swollen carcase and a ruined skin—or worse still, 

 to find that he has vacated during the night without leaving any address — 

 there is also a feeling of unwillingness to admit defeat, even though it may 

 be only temporary, which spurs a man on to do something then and there 

 instead of returning quietly, like a wise man, to camp and make arrangements 

 for the next day. Such, at all events, have been my own feelings more than 

 once, and in the expectation that they will be, or have been, those of others 

 as well, I will now describe the procedure which has proved effective on 

 occasions of this kind. A tiger had been wounded, apparently not very 

 badly, and had laid up in thick grass jungle reaching about up to the waist ; 

 first of all men were posted on high ground or in trees all round, but some 

 distance from the cover into which the animal had been marked. These had 

 instructions to at once call out if they saw anything move, otherwise to 



