Antlers 



of the game are absolutely essential if success is 

 tb be attained. In every jungle there are certain 

 points to which animals will break naturally, others 

 to which they may be made to break by good 

 beating, whilst there are some directions in which 

 no amount of good beating will succeed in bringing 

 the game up to the guns. One and all will break 

 back through the beaters. Once a little jungle 

 lore has been assimilated, this becomes so evident 

 that it is a source of never-ending surprise to see 

 the number of times this simple law is violated. 

 Some strong-minded but utterly ignorant sports- 

 man (save the mark !) will insist, perhaps because 

 his seniority gives him the power to claim the 

 right, on running the whole of the beats himself, 

 with the only too natural result of a practically 

 blank bag. 



What memories those days, beating in the 

 beautiful jungles of Northern India, conjure up ! 

 After a substantial chotahazri, or breakfast, we 

 set off in the brilliant crystal brightness of the 

 early dawn. The air is keen and piercing and like 

 champagne, blowing straight from the snows 

 on the great Himalayan Chain which towers up so 

 near in the clear atmosphere. 



The first beat is some two miles away, and before 

 climbing up on to the pad-elephant or into the 

 dog-cart or on to the pony, one pulls on one's 

 thickest English sweater, and may add a motor- 

 coat if the elephant or dog-cart is our fate. 



19 



