March 24, igoo.] 
L^'OREST AND STREAM. 
227 
sucU that at 150 yards it would place most of the bullets 
in a 6-inch ring; but in damp weather the powder was 
liable to lose its strength by absorbing moisture through 
the paper. 
About a mile from the bungalow I saw a b ue bull stand- 
ing among some trees 150 yards away. He saw me at 
the same moment, and, thinking there was no chance of 
getting nearer, T took a careful aim at his shoulder, upon 
which"" he disappeared in the jungle. On followmg 1ns 
tracks I found numerous spots of blood on the gromid, 
and. supposing he would quickly drop, I returned to the 
dawk bungalow and procured a low-caste Hindoo to help 
cut up the bull and arrange for the flesh being earned 
away. We followed the spotches of blood for perhaps 
a nnle and a half, when the bleeding appeared to have 
stopped, and, the ground being covered with broken 
pieces of rock, there was no possibility of finding any 
footprints, so we were obliged at last to give up the 
sc3rcli 
At the commencement of the hot season of 1870, the 
cold weather field days and other work of that kind being' 
pretty well over, the everyday routine of a military sta- 
tion became so irksome that 1 obtained a week's leave, 
hired two camels to carry a tent and baggage for myself 
nnd servants and went for an outing through the sur- 
rounding countrv about sixteen miles away from the 
station. It was mostly covered with low jungle of acacia, 
camel thorn and other bushes, with here and there a small 
village where the soil was deep enough for cultivation 
and water could be found for irrigating it. There was 
hardly anv large game— only a few gazelles, black buck 
antelope and wild pigs to be met with occasionally— but 
at that season of the year camp lite was dehghtlul, quite 
irrespective of game shooting. There was brilliant sun- 
shine ior weeks together, yet the heat was not enough to 
be uncomfortable, provided thin cloihes were worn and 
the head was protected with a pith helmet. The groves 
of mangos near the villages were covered with new leaves 
and beginning to put out their sweet-scented blossoms. 
Here and there a dhak tree (Butex frondosa), whose 
branches were still bare of leaves, had every twig adorned 
with its golden-scarlet flowers. The little green barbet or 
"coppersmith" (Megalaima vmdis) was sounding its tmk 
tink tink— a note like the tapping of a small hammer on 
a tin kettle— from the tops of banhmias, with their gera- 
niumlike blossoms, varying in color from almost white 
to the deepest purple on the same branches. Ihe golden 
orioles were whistling on the date palms and around the 
native houses were swarms of cooing wild doves, some 
varieties no larger than the American robin. The West- 
ley Richards carbine and the double two-grooved muzzle- 
loader mentioned last year hi my article on black buck 
shooting had been stolen bv a villainous servant and car- 
ried into a native independent State whose frontier was 
only a mile distant from our cantonment. 
As the state of mv finances did not allow me to pay 
£40 to £60 ior a good double breechloading rifle, 1 had 
bought a single Purdey second-hand muzzleloader car- 
rying an ounce round bullet. It weighed only »H 
poimds, had a barrel 30 inches long, and was nfLed with 
narrow bands and broad grooves, which allowed a rather 
tight-fitting ball to be loaded easily; but owing to the 
grooves having one turn in 4 feet a powder charge exceed- 
ing 2^4 dtams could not be used withoiit a bullet occasion- 
ally stripping. With that charge it was beautifully accu- 
rate, and I never had any more Biodern rifle with which 
I bagged more game in an equal number of shots, al- 
though its trajectory was SJ^ inches high m 100 yards. 
I had also a lovely i6-bore muzzleloading shotgun by 
Sam Smith, at that time one of the best among the Lon- 
don' gun makers. It had 30-inch Damascus barrels and 
weighed 6% pounds. Its locks were so perfect that rais- 
ing' and lowering them was a luxury, and T never knew 
a harder hitting gun with the charge I used, viz., 2/2 
drams of powder corresponding to Curtis & Harvey s 
present No. 2 Diamond grain and i ounce of shot, i had 
that gun for some years and made very satisfactory bags 
of game from quail and sand grouse to duck. With the 
same charge of powder and a ball loaded with a thm linen 
patch, it was almost as accurate as a rifle up to 50 yards, 
and sometimes much further. 
Riding my Arab horse in front of the camels, i wan- 
dered around the country for four days, killing at first a 
gazelle, and a day or two afterward an antelope, to sup- 
ply the servants and camel man with meat. It was the 
breeding season of the partridges, sand grouse, non- 
migratory quail and hares, so I could not tire at them, but 
shot for my own table a few ducks which had delayed 
their migration to the north of the Himalayas. 
On the evening of the fourth day I reached a tract of 
forest several miles long and broad belonging to a Rajah 
who was very courteous in giving permission to the Brit- 
ish to shoot there. Besides small game, it contained a 
few antelopes, gazelles and leopards, and great quantities 
of nilghae and pigs. (In parts of the country open 
enough to ride through with a spear, shooting a pig is 
as great a crime as shooting a fox in England; but here 
the bush was so prevalent that such sport was impossible. 
A few ardent pig stickers in the station where I lived 
tried it on several occasions, but the pigs invariably 
escaped into the dense jungle before they could gallop 
within reach on their Arabs.) 
I had dismounted and was walking, rifle in hand, when 
a blue bull galloped across an open space 70 yards dis- 
tant. I fired and he disappeared among the trees with- 
out showing any sign of being hit, and I eventually lost 
him. 
The penetration of my rifle was such that a bullet strik- 
ing the center of the breast of a buck antelope at 150 yards 
invariably passed out through the hind quarters; but I 
doubted if this would be sufficient for nilghas. On the 
following morning, therefore. I loaded with a bullet 
weighing fifteen to the pound. It required a little extra 
time to force into the muzzle, but I had found by previous 
trials that 2V2 drams of powder could be used without 
causing it to 'strip. I also loaded the shotgun with ball 
and gave it to a coolie to hand to me in case a quick sec- 
ond shot were necessary. 
The ground was very hard and bare of grass. It was 
covered with trees about 50 feet high, with tall bushes im- 
derneath them. For some time I saw onlv pigs, and oc- 
casionally glimpses of the hind quarters of nilghae disap- 
pearing between the trunks. At length a fine bull ap- 
peared through an opening in the trees about 150 yards 
distant. Raising the leaf sight for that range, I fired at 
his shoulder and he dropped, apparently dead. At the 
sound of the rifle another bull rushed out 50 yards nearer 
than the first and stood .still for a moment gazing in my 
direction. Snatching the shotgun from the coolie, I fired 
at his shoulder and he dropped on the ground struggling, 
with his back toward me. I ran foAvard to within 20 or 30 
yards and hit the center of the spine with the second bar- 
rel, killing him instantly. The first bullet had struck a 
trifle above the heart. 
On going forward to where the first bull had dropped, 
he was nowhere to be seen, No traces of blood could be 
found, and the ground was so hard that there were no 
visible footprints; so he was finally lost, I had probably 
overestimated the distance, so that the bullet had struck 
above the heart, grazing the spine. 
About two miles from where this occurred the Govern- 
ment road passed by the edge of the forest, and there was 
a small village with a dawk bungalow for travelers. 
I there hired a bullock cart, had the nilghas carried to 
the bungalow and made him a present to the villagers, 
my own servants, of course, having their share of the 
meat. 
I had a good meal of curried fowl at the bungalow and 
in the afternoon went out again. I walked a mile or so into 
the forest and saw through a bare space in the trees a large 
herd of nilghae. Leaving the coolie well behind, I glided 
carefully from trunk to trunk and found that there were 
four bulls and about twenty cows. My binocular glass 
showed that one bull was larger than the other three and of 
a specially bright color ; so, after passing two of the smaller 
.ones without being noticed, I managed to get within 
100 yards of him before he saw me. He instantly turned 
to look, standing so that his left shoulder joint was in 
the line for his heart. T fired at this, and by the time 
inc smoke IklI cleared away the whole herd was out of 
sight. After reloading I went to where the bull had 
stood and followed his tracks at a quick walk or run for 
about two miles. This was hard work, the thermometer 
standing at <S5 degrees in the shade. There were now 
and then spots of blood, and at other places hoof marks 
coifld be seen on the surface of the hard soil. Sometimes 
I had to guess his direction, and on two or three occa- 
sions caught a glimpse of the tail disappearing through 
bushes 40 or 50 yards in front. 
At length I reached the end of the bushes at the edge 
of an apen space 50 yards across, beyond which was a 
clump of small trees. The legs of the bull could be seen 
70 yards distant, moving slowly away as if he were much 
exhausted. I had to sit down in order to see his body, and 
found that the line for the heart was through the back ribs. 
He was hit there, but again ran out of sight, and the 
coolie and I searched for half an hour before we found 
him. He was lying down, not quite dead, in the midst 
of some tall and exceedingly dense bushes perhaps 50 
yards from where he had started when I fired. I at once 
"shot him through the brain to put him out of pain, as the 
.coolie who accom'panied me was not a Mussulman. Half 
a mile further on we found a cart track leading to a small 
clearing in the forest, where there were a few houses. The 
head man, naked down to the waist, was engaged with 
his son threshing grain on the sort of threshing floor 
mentioned in the Bible, formed of clay and cow dung 
mixed together so as to make a very smooth hard sur- 
face when dry. After some palaver he agreed to let me 
have a bullock cart to take away the nilghas, but refused 
to accept payment, so I insisted upon giving the driver of 
the bullocks a rupee. 
The first bullet had struck an inch behind the shoulder 
joint and thus missed the heart. Neither of the two had 
"gone through the body, nor had those which killed the 
other bull in the morning. (The best rifles for shooting 
large, tough animals in thick jungles were those on Cap- 
tain Forsyth'g system, with slow twist, round baUs and 
heavy powder charges. I afterward bought a double 
16-bore breechloader of this kind, which, when loaded 
with 124 grains of powder, would put several successive 
shots from alternate barrels into a 4];'2-inch ring at 100 
yards. It gave a fine combination of penetration and 
striking surface, while the round balls cut through twigs 
instead of glancing off, as conicals are liable to do.) 
The following morning I was walking through thick 
jungle and saw what appeared to be a strange kind of deer 
running across at 70 yards distance. I fired, killing him 
in his tracks, and found that he was a nilghas without 
horns and very j^oung— not larger than a Virginia deer. 
He was of a slate color, thus showing that the statement 
made by naturalists that the bull is of the same color as 
the cow until two or three years of age is not always 
correct . 
I had the hide of the large bull preserved, but it was of 
a most inconvenient size and weigl^t to carry about; and 
as the small horns made the heads poor trophies, I never 
again shot one of these animals for sport. 
Two years later I was on a seven weeks' march m 
charge of 600 army remount horses and their native at- 
tendants. At one of the camping grounds a number of the 
Mussulman syces (grooms) came to my tent and asked 
me to kill for their food "a wild bull " which they had 
found not far away. I could not at first imagine what ani- 
mal they meant, for there were no bison within hundreds 
of miles, and no swampy land, such as buft'aloes love, 
was near. I took out a single breechloading .45 ex- 
press rifle, loaded with 110 grains of powder and a 280- 
. grain hollow-pointed bullet. It was the first express I 
had owned, and I had only killed black buck antelope with 
it ; but most wonderful accounts of the tremendous effects 
of weapons on the same principle had appeared in the 
Indian newspapers. 
The syces conducted me to a field of dhall. a kind of 
pea with a stiff stem and over 5 feet high. From the mid- 
dle of this could be heard moaning grunts and a noise 
hke the beating of horns on branches, but nothing could 
be seen; so I climbed on to a mud wall half in ruins and 
watched. In a few minutes a nilghas raised his head 
above the crop SO yards away and I fired at the root ol 
his ear. He dropped, but instantly jumped up and gal- 
loped across the country. I followed at a run for quite 
half a mile, when the bull disappeared in a field of sugar 
cane. Thinking that if I entered there he might bolt on 
the other side, I walked around the edge of the crop and 
at last saw the lower part of his neck through an opening 
in the cane 60 yards distant. I fired at this, hoping to 
bfeak the spine, but afterward found that the bullet had 
only split a process of one of the vertebrae. Luckily, the 
bullet itself flew into fragments, one of which cut open 
the jugular vein. The bull ran into a thick part of the 
cane and stopped, when I heard the blood pouring in a 
thick stream on the gound, and after a few minutes he 
fell over dying. When skinned, part of the first bul- 
let was found at the root of the ear, resting on the skull, 
which had a very slight crack in it. All the rest of the 
lead had been dashed into very small pieces. 
The bull's hide was torn in several places, showing that 
he had been driven out of a herd after a fight with a rival. 
This accounted for his agitated state when found. 
J. J. Meyrick. 
BuDLEiGH SAi.TEiiTON, England, Feb. 6. 
\iitui[dl ^iBtavQ, 
The Log Cabin Naturalist. 
Hunters and scientists in every part of the world will 
deplore the death of Prof. Edwin Carter, "tne i^g cajin 
naturalist," whose collection of Rocky Mounta.n ra-iia, 
at Breckenridge, in Colorado, is the only one extant. 
Prof. Carter devoted his life to the collection and preser- 
vation of types of the animals and birds of the Rocky 
Mountain region — in fact, he sacrificed his life to his 
work, as his death, which occurred recently, was caused 
by arsenical poisoning, due to the handling of poisons 
in stuffing and mounting his thousands of specimens. 
In a humble log cabin at the foot of a snow-capped 
mountain and commanding a superb view of the entire 
valley of the Blue River is stored the Carter collection, 
whicli has been visited by scientists from all parts of 
the world and by many curious tourists, and which has 
been pronounced the finest private collection of fauna in 
existence. Thousands of dollars have been offered for 
the rarest specimens which were secured by the inde- 
fatigable naturalist, but Prof. Carter refused to part 
with anything that he could not duplicate, his object being 
to found a Rocky Mountain museum to be located at 
Denver. Now his dream is to be realized after his death, 
as John F. Campion, one of the wealthiest mine owners of 
Colorado, has taken up the matter and has interested 
other capital, so that the Carter collection will soon be 
removed from Breckenridge to a suitable building in 
Denver. 
In order to secure enough money to enable him to pur- 
sue his life, Prof. Carter sold many duplicate specimens to 
naturalists in all parts of the world, and most of the 
Rocky Mountain fauna in the great museums of this and 
other countries came from his cabin and were mounted 
by his hand. He also purchased of other taxidermists 
and collectors specimens that his collection lacked, and 
in this way he made his exhibit well nigh perfect. He 
had a marvelous knowledge of the habits of the birds 
and animals of the Rockies, and as an instance of the 
thoroughness which characterized his work, his collec- 
tion of ptarmigans includes one for almost every day 
of the year, thus enabling students of natural history to 
note the many changes which occur in the bird's plumage. 
His skill as a taxidermist and his art in imparting life- 
like pos.es to stui¥ed animals equaled his .gifts of observa- 
tion, and the mounting of his specimens is said to be un- 
excelled. 
The museum at Breckenridge presents a bewildering 
sight as the visitor enters. Stuffed buffaloes and grizzlies, 
brought down with Carter's own rifle, occupy the center 
of the room, while around them on every side are life- 
like mountain lions, strange-colored birds, nests full of 
rare and beautiful eggs, and piles of valuable and skill- 
fully tanned pelts. The loft is full of skins and plumage, 
a,nd there is hardly a foot of vacant space in the building, 
so closely are the valuable specimens packed. Prof. 
Carter was unable to make an estimate of the number of 
speciinens he had gathered, but the total will mount into 
the tens of thousands. He was engaged in the work 
of classification when he died, and his work alone will 
require years of effort on the part of the experts who 
will take it up. — Correspondence Chicago Record. 
Breeding Wood Ducks. 
During my connection with the Zoological Garden, 
Cincinnati, I managed to secure a pair of wood ducks 
from a friend who had crippled them on a gunning trip. 
Fortunately, both of them had been but slightly injured 
near the tip of the wing. Therefore I amputated just at 
the wound and they recovered in a short time. They 
were placed in a roomy inclosure occupied by some silver 
pheasants, in the center of which was a small pool, par- 
tially surrounded by a thick growth of shrubs. It was the 
second summer after their arrival before I made anj^ at- 
tempt at getting them to breed. The female was excess- 
ively timid — so much so that I feared she would injure 
herself whenever the keeper entered the inclosure for the 
purpose of feeding, etc. Getting an old-fashioned nail 
keg, I cut a hole in its side about half way up, put in a 
lot of dead leaves and placed it on end among the shrubs, 
witli a slanting board fixed so as to make an easy en- 
trance. The first summer after, the female never made the 
slightest attempt at nesting, but on the second I detected 
her in the act of inspecting the makeshift quarters. 
Thereupon the keeper was instructed to be particularly 
careful, and I anxiously reconnoitered the pool for sev- 
eral days, when my watchfulness was rewarded by calch- 
ing her in the act of leaving the nest. So soon as she 
had wandered to a distant portion of the inclo.sure T 
stealthily entered, and on raising the head of the keg was 
delighted with the view of an egg. 
From that time forward I risked no more inspections, 
but anxiously waited for indications of brooding. They 
came in due time, and one morning the keeper reported 
that the young ducks were scattered all over the inclos- 
ure. The entire staff was immediately summoned, and 
some lively work was done in catching them. Of all the 
youngsters I ever handled they were the quickest at hid- 
ing A simole leaf served as a capital medium of con- 
cealment. They were transferred to a pen specially con- 
structed for them, consisting of four boards i foot wide 
and 8 feet long set edgewise and covered with fine wire 
