THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
take up your position on a shoulder whence a wide expanse can be spied. 
You are tired enough to be content to sit still, and maybe light a pipe, and 
it is satisfactory to think you throw away no chances by doing so. Glasses 
wander from point to point. Dark forms show up in a far green hollow, 
but they are nothing but pig, intent as ever on their never-ending quest 
for food. Perhaps you catch a glimpse of a roe among the trees. It may be 
you are suddenly aware of the stag you have come so far to shoot standing 
waiting in the shadow by the edge of the forest. How long has he been there ? 
How was it you did not see him before ? It may even be that the king of the 
jungle himself stalks by. Your calm may be changed into strenuous up and 
doing by some such sight as these, but it is also more likely that it will 
not. In this case you finish your pipe in peace, watch the evening stealing 
across the sky and so back to camp planning fresh things for the morrow. 
The maral stag seems to be a local variety of the race found in the Cau- 
casus, Asia Minor and the Carpathians, possibly in Central Asia also. The 
records given in Rowland Ward’s book, however, go to show that Persian 
heads run smaller than with the western types. Antlers from this country 
are generally rather straighter in the beam than is usually considered 
consistent with beauty. Skulls with over fourteen points are uncommon, 
the best the writer has ever seen being one with sixteen points hanging 
up in the Customs House at Bandar Gez. 
A word now about the other fauna of the Mazanderan forest. Roe are 
scarce. In two visits to this part the writer had only one chance. That came 
when it was not desirable to disturb the forest by a shot, in other words 
when after a stag that had been heard roaring. Pig one meets in extra- 
ordinary numbers, many of the boars being very big, but shooting them 
would be useless, as none of your Mohammedan followers would touch 
them. Often, no doubt, as they go stampeding through the forest they do 
the sportsman a bad turn by sending off nobler game. It is difficult to 
understand why the bears that inhabit these forests are as rare as they 
undoubtedly are, for food is very plentiful and they have no foes to perse- 
cute them. The writer, though coming across their tracks occasionally, 
never saw one. They are, no doubt, a variety of Ursus arctus. 
It was my fortune twice to come across tiger in this country. On the 
first occasion, as I was sitting spying one evening, he walked just below 
me, and I shot him without having to move more than a few yards to get 
a clear view. The other time the tiger was spotted lying down sunning 
himself in the long grass some distance off. I made a stalk, but he had 
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