Alimafias 339 
in front. A fox will often appear so deep in thought as to be 
absolutely thunderstruck when he finds himself face to face with 
a gun at six yards distance. In direst consternation he fairly 
bounds around, describing a complete circle of fur ; whereas a cat 
in like circumstance merely deflects her course with coolest 
deliberation and never a sign of alarm or increase of speed. But 
within six more yards she will have vanished from view—covert 
ornone. Adepts all are the cats, alike in appearing one knows 
not whence, and in disappearing one knows not how. 
Yonder goes a fox, slowly trotting along below the crest, in 
his self-sufficient, nonchalant style. His upstanding fur, long 
bushy brush, and swollen neck appear to double his bulk and lend 
him quite an imposing figure. But let a rifle-ball sing past his 
ears or dash up a cloud of the sand below—what a transformation ! 
One hardly now recognises the long lean streak that whips up 
and over the ridge. 
A handsome trophy is the Spanish lynx, especially those 
more brightly coloured examples sparsely spotted with big black 
splotches arranged, more or less, in interrupted lines. The ear- 
tufts—indeed in adults the extreme tips of the ears themselves— 
point inwards and backwards; and the narrow irides are pale 
yellow (between lemon and hazel), the pupil being full, round, and 
black, nearly filling the circle. In the wild-cat the pupil is a thin 
upright, set in a cruel pale-green iris. 
We have tried FIRE as a means of securing the smaller 
alimafias, such as mongoose, but it is seldom a thicket or mancha 
can be so completely isolated as to leave no line of escape. The 
animals, moreover, are astute enough to retire under cover of 
the clouds of smoke that roll away to leeward. 
2. Lone DRIVES, extending over, say, a couple of miles of brush- 
wood (which may contain half-a-dozen patches of thicker jungle, 
all separate), give wide scope for skilled fieldcraft and demand 
no small local knowledge. The first essential is ‘an eye for a 
country.” There are men to whom this faculty is denied ; some 
seem incapable of acquiring it. Others, again, appear correctly 
to diagnose even a difticult country, with its chances, almost at a 
first experience. The favoured haunts of game, together with 
their accustomed lines of retreat when disturbed, must be studied. 
Each day, though engaged on other pursuit, one’s eye should be 
reading those lessons that are written in “spoor,” and noting each 
