86 BIG-GAME SHOOTING IN UPPER BURMA 



and which are much too dense to be forced 

 asunder. He creeps under such places, which 

 are often not more than 4 ft. 6 in. high, like a 

 cunning old stag, with nose held low and bent 

 legs, while the wretched sportsman, following 

 in his wake, has to move along doubled up 

 and dripping perspiration from every pore. 

 The longer these abominable natural arches 

 are, and the oftener he can find them, the 

 better pleased the brute is ; in fact, he seems 

 to go out of his way to travel through them, 

 probably with the idea of shaking off pursuit. 

 A scared bull will often, when crossing a stream, 

 wade for several hundred yards and ascend 

 the opposite bank a quarter of a mile or more 

 higher up, or lower down, with the evident 

 intention of confusing his trackers. Needless 

 to say that when alarmed he always travels 

 down wind. I don't know that he has yet 

 attained to walking backwards, with a view 

 to hiding his tracks, but he is not far off it ! 

 Then he has an almost uncanny instinct of the 

 presence of danger. He may neither have 

 winded, seen nor heard you ; and yet you 

 won't be long in the presence of an old bull 

 before he finds you out, though you may not have 

 moved hand or foot. And the cunning way 

 in which the old fellow will select a spot to lie 

 up in ! A bison contents himself with diving 

 into thick bamboo jungle and lying down under 



