496 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol XI. 



Some practical maxims should be remembered; One is, that if your" 

 shikari thinks the ground unsafe, as it often is after rain, you should 

 not attempt it ; unless you do not mind trying what it feels like to 

 be a landslip. When game is sighted, take your time ; it is a question of 

 steadiness and patience, not hurry and flurry. Use your glass to see which 

 heads are worth firing at, and do not accept your shikari's mere assurance, 

 after you have shot one, that some other is "marneko laik"also. Study the 

 wind • with bears and thar especially. As a rule it is down-hill from 

 6-30 p.m. to 8-30 a.m., then up-hill ; but on cloudy days it is changeable and 

 unsafe for near stalking. It is specially variable near glaciers and before rain. 

 A pocket Aneroid in the tent gives timely warning of rain, so is useful in this 

 connection as well as for altitudes. Clean your rifle daily yourself. Main- 

 tain a strict check on the number of cartridges issued and expended. Use 

 strong padlocks ; keep your keys on you ; a lanyard is a good thing to hang 

 them by day and night. Thefts take place, At Dunera three gentlemen 

 were at dinner when a cash-box was stolen. Dalhousie is infested with 

 " barrack boys " and other thievish rascals from the Punjab. "We had a 

 burglar at Hul who helped himself to Rs. 40 ; and subsquently found 

 himself, not for the first time, in Chamba jail. The hillmen are very 

 honest unsophisticated fellows, but some of them go up as servants to 

 Dalhousie, and return educated. 



Always move camp in the early morning ; thus you get in while the day is 

 still young, and your baggage is not belated. It would be venturing beyond 

 my experience to offer suggestions as to routes to follow, but Northward Ho ! 

 I think. Tyacke's book gives a few hints on this subject. The strict 

 preservation of game in Chamba during the past few years, though made 

 the subject of grumbling by injudicious critics, has done great good ; this 

 good especially, that whatever line you take you are pretty sure to find 

 animals if you know how. Do not spare any foxes, martens, weasels, that 

 you may get a chance of a pot at, when not near more important game. By 

 shooting these vermin you greatly help the preservation of pheasants and 

 chukor. Gooral seem to be almost everywhere ; but to get them you must 

 be out at the dawn, and work till after dusk. They are sometimes very low 

 down ; only a few hundred feet above the rivor bed ; but they are to be found 

 anywhere between 4,000 and 8,000 feet. From 11 a.m. till 4 p.m. it is, as a 

 rule, useless trying for either bears or gooral ; but I have more than once 

 seen thar rise to feed at 2 p.m. Bears are often come on quite by chance when 

 returning in the evening or going up a valley early. Thus I shot a bear 

 that was on a grassy bank about twenty yards above me when I was return- 

 ing after a blank day. He came rolling down, bellowing ; but hardly needed 

 the other shot that I sent into him as he reached the path five yards from 

 me. The ground that gooral, and still more, thar, are found on is exceedingly 

 dangerous in bits ; test every step if you have any doubt of your foothold 



