CONSERVATORS’ WORK 161 
by rushing at the elephant with a roar. It was but 
the veriest fraction of a second before he had passed 
through the grass and emerged on our side, only a 
few yards away ; a still shorter time elapsed before 
three shots were fired almost simultaneously, and he 
lay dead under the elephant’s tightly curled trunk, 
so close that she receded half a pace to avoid his 
fall. 
Similar incidents of sporting life in Oudh might 
be multiplied. It might be told how we opened a 
campaign against the big tigers of Duduaghat, which 
for so many years had roamed that part of the Kheri 
forests, not unmolested but unscathed ; how in the 
space of one month we bagged four tigers, measuring 
in the aggregate over 40 feet in length, and how 
their quarters were almost immediately occupied by 
other but younger animals. But enough has been 
written to prove that the solitary sportsman may 
find pleasure in camping in the Government forests, 
and, with good trackers and a knowledge of wild 
beasts and their ways, may yet make a fair bag 
without incurring any great expense. 
In these histories of successful sport it is, however, 
due that a narrative of a third defeat should find 
place, lest the impression should be given that there 
was no ill success, no failure to bring the great car- 
nivora to the gun, and no clumsy handling of the 
rifle when the supreme moment presented itself. 
Such occasions were, indeed, more frequent than was 
desirable, and memory still returns with a pang of 
regret to opportunities lost by wrong interpretation 
of the signs of the jungle, by want of attention or 
foresight, and, worst of all, by hurried, ill-aimed 
11 
