77 o 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 16, 1908. 
than a brace or two of birds, the jaded official 
who has spent the six months in the reek and 
heat of the plains, returns to his duty after 
ten days’ leave in the exhilarating air and 
glorious scenery with his muscles hardened, 
his features bronzed, and a general sensation 
of measuring three or four inches more round 
the chest than on his start. 
Having started tents, provisions and guns, 
etc., over night, a twenty-mile ride along a 
hill road one October afternoon brought me 
to my little camp, snugly pitched on a tiny 
plateau, walled in by grand pines and deodars, 
close to a spring which bubbled from the hill¬ 
side. 
Turning in early, sleep was kept from my 
eyes for an hour or more by the weird cries 
of a family of the great flying squirrel, holding 
high revel in the pines around my tent, and 
when tea and biscuits were handed me at 
4:30 A. M. by the shivering servant, I felt as 
if I had just closed my eyes. Dressing rapidly 
and sorting cartridges into small and handy 
packets, we faced the keen air and darkness, 
and climbing one behind the other, my shikari, 
two gun carriers and self, a steep goat track 
for some forty minutes, at length reached a 
small jutting crag on the face of the higher 
ridge, where we sat down to listen for the 
crow of the pheasant or jungle fowl. Over 
such a vast stretch of hill and precipice, I 
have found that this is the only way to insure 
any real idea of what ground should be tried 
and beaten for birds. The birds are scattered, 
and in the stillness of dawn it is astonishing 
to how great a distance they can be heard; 
and although apparently near at hand, a stiff 
climb, or a painful descent, is often endured 
before cartridges need be slipped into the 
breech. 
We had not long to wait; a towering pine- 
top on a higher crest away to our left was 
gilded with the coming light when a sudden 
“kok-kok-kok-laass” from a clump of ilex just 
above our rock startled us into action. There 
was as yet no shooting light, but the move¬ 
ments of the birds in the dry' tangle above us 
showed that they were thinking of leaving 
their roosts, and that there was no time to 
waste in waiting for a better chance. Silently' 
taking my stand on the edge of the descend¬ 
ing cliff, near a solitary tree, when a fair view 
of the probable line of flight was obtainable, I 
slipped in a couple of No. 4s and lay two more 
handy on the rock beside me. A wave of the 
hand, and keen old Vic slipped up the hill 
and around into an oak covert. Before she 
reached the birds, however, down fluttered the 
cock, carefully keeping under cover until he 
reached the edge of the abyss, down which he 
plunged, too indistinct to shoot at. 
“Steady, Sahib, there are more above,” whis¬ 
pered my man, and as Vic neared them, down 
shot two more birds like arrows. Holding 
far in front, the hills rung to the right and 
left. The first bird held on strong and hard 
to the undergrowth in the valley below. The 
second, however, circled to the right, and sud¬ 
denly collapsed in a bush. She was picked up 
stone dead. The two beaters with me then 
climbed above me, in the hope .of rousing a 
possible straggler. I waited ten minutes and 
then there was a shout, “Look out, Sahib!” 
I looked up. There was just time to pitch 
the gun to my shoulder, and the bird went 
past me with a whiz and crashed into the 
undergrowth far below. I have seen it stated 
that a teal with the wind behind it is the fast¬ 
est thing on earth; perhaps he is. I would 
only suggest as a competitor for that proud 
position an old cock koklas pheasant, thor¬ 
oughly aroused, making his best time from 
the top of a hillside to his tangled covert, 
one thousand feet below. The pace is truly 
tremendous. 
The birds were both koklas. We hurried 
off to a deep valley further on, whence we 
fancied we heard the shrill bantam-like crow 
of the little jungle cock shortly before. 
Rounding a corner, •we came to the edge of a 
ravine, and between us and the opposite side 
was a cup-like glen, a very likely spot. A 
couple of stones rolled down produced com¬ 
motion. We faintly saw two or three birds 
scuttling about for a moment in the under¬ 
growth, and almost immediately five rose, and 
skimming the tops of the fern and weed, 
reached the edge of the descent, and were 
lost to view at once; not, however, before a 
cock turned over and over in his flight and 
brought up like a bombshell against a pro¬ 
jecting rock. 
Down wdnt Vic, and this bird was also re¬ 
trieved. So far everything went well, but, 
alas, from this shot onward the morning was 
one continuous repetition of hard climbs, steep 
scrambling descents, birds few and far be¬ 
tween, and those that did get up being care¬ 
ful to do so at only the most inconvenient 
times; either when the perspiring, breathless 
sportsman was holding on to obstinate clumps 
of fern, in the endeavor to secure a foothold 
where he might stand while the beaters rolled 
rocks from above into likely patches between 
him and them; or again, when the pines and 
oaks were so thick that the only intimation of 
their rising was the flutter of wings, or at the 
most a glimpse between the tree trunks. 
Nevertheless, tired, but happy, we stumbled 
down the stony track, noon finding us back 
at camp, disposing of mountain chops and 
scones at an appalling rate, while Vic, 
stretched on her side on a bed of pine needles, 
slumbered and dreamed, with many a kick and 
shiver, of gigantic longtails or well-spurred 
chanticleers. 
An hour’s rest and, kjud stick in hand, we 
ascended the hill once more. A report from 
a very dirty blanketed hill man of the exist¬ 
ence of a brace or two of Impeyan or moonal 
pheasants on a distant hilltop, persuaded me 
,to try for a shot at such grand birds. Cross¬ 
ing a rounded shoulder between two ravines, 
and up to the chin in fern and weed, a bird 
ro'se ahead of us and sank again beyond the 
rise. “A snipe, Sahib!” said my plains-bred 
gun-carrier. Fondly hoping better, I relieved 
him of the gun, and we beat quietly on; again, 
flip-flap, and a quick shot between two trees 
knocked over the bonny brown bird—my first 
woodcock in India. 
At length we reached the last fringe of pine 
forest, and scarcely had I stopped, when, with¬ 
out warning, a grand old cock moonal bustled 
out of a clump of deodars, and shooting beyond 
the edge of the kjud, fell through space. The 
sunlight glanced on the glossy metallic purple, 
blue and green of the moonal’s head and back. 
Falling with extended pinions, it seemed for 
the moment some living jewel hung in space. 
The wary bird gave me no shot, but had he 
done so, retrieving him would have been al¬ 
most impossible. 
We passed a small tarn on the neck between 
us and the last spur, and in the mud around 
its edges I stopped to read a little of the his¬ 
tory of the previous night. There legibly im¬ 
pressed were the paths of moonal and jungle 
cock down to the shallower water; and on 
the opposite side the tracks of two gooral 
(Himalayan chamois) went out across the mud 
to the water's edge, then round a projecting 
rock, and back to the harder ground again. 
Tt gave me a little thrill to see the pugs of a 
leopard over those of the buck gooral; and 
whether the story ended in a tragedy or an 
empty bag for “spots,” the rocky ground be¬ 
yond gave no clue. The tracks of a heavy 
bear were also clear and fresh, and a second 
visit to the hilltop with a rifle was at once 
decided on. 
Fifty paces ahead the spur ended; and 
from beneath a cairn-like mass of rocks, 
topped by a few stunted pines, up sprang an¬ 
other moonal, as gorgeous as the first and as 
big and heavy as a turkey. An easy crossing 
shot, and down he came, and I was fully re¬ 
warded for any weight lost in the day’s climb. 
A brace and a half of pheasants, a wood¬ 
cock, a moonal and a jungle cock was the 
bag of the first day’s shoot, and with the ex¬ 
ception of the last day, when some lower 
ground was visited for a day at chukor part¬ 
ridge and hare, and when a lucky beat drove a 
little barking deer past me so close that a 
charge of No. 4 rolled him over like a rabbit, 
it was the best of the week. 
Each day was much the same as its prede¬ 
cessor. I found my eye getting clearer and 
my legs stronger. At night the church-like 
feeling of the camp cloistered within the tower¬ 
ing giants of the pine forest, and the deep 
hush of sleeping nature calmed fretted nerves 
and worried brain; and I returned to my duties 
fitter and healthier in mind and body. 
The Other Side. 
From the city came an angler with costly split-bamboo. 
And forty-seven different kinds of flies. 
He had read all works on angling and knew a thing or two 
Of fish of every sh^pe and every size, 
lie used a line of braided silk and multiplying reel, 
With German silver mountings all to match. 
Me had a patent landing net and gaff of polished steel; 
And scales to weigh the fish he meant to catch. 
A freckled country urchin cut a rod from a birch bough; 
lie knew no lore from modern angling books; 
He tied a bit of twine to it as well as he knew how, 
And with a nickel bought a dozen hooks. 
He had no silken line nor reel, or deadly pointed gaff. 
Nor fancy tempting flies with tinsel bright; 
But naught cared he: “I’ll catch some fish,” he chuckled 
with a laugh, 
And dug a can of garden worms that night. 
The city man and country boy fished up d babbling 
brook, 
Where schools of handsome brook trout frolicked by. 
The boy impaled his juicy worms upon his little ho»k. 
The expert whipped the ripples with a fly. 
The man a gleaming trout yanked out at almost every 
cast, 
He kept it up from early morn to night. 
But when that freckled country boy, disgusted, quit at 
last, 
lie hadn’t had a solitary bite. 
Norman Jefferies. 
