Foreigners say that wherever Englishmen travel the cry is "Let us go and kill something." This alludes, of course, to our love of sport, and they rather laugh at our enthusiasm for slaying the feræ naturæ; but I attribute two-thirds of our acquired possessions to the innate love of sport implanted in the breasts of our islanders. Our pioneers have generally been men in search of game. To be a successful sportsman a man must study the habits, manners, and customs of the beasts he intends to hunt. I propose to relate here certain facts which can well be impressed upon the minds of naturalists as well as others.
India is our great nursery, and in it game is still plentiful. Hog hunting is pre-eminently the grandest sport. After it comes Tiger-shooting off Elephants and out of howdahs. Tigers can be shot on foot only in Central India. Where Tigers abound, the grass is too high and too thick for a man on foot to have a fair chance. But mounted on a fairly staunch Elephant, the pursuit is most enjoyable.
It has been a disputed point how a Tiger strikes down his prey. A noted sportsman wrote as follows:—"Some years back, at Pykara, not far from the bungalow, a Tiger took a fancy to a Todah (a hill man) in preference to the Buffaloes he was tending. Two other Todahs were witnesses of the affair, and they described how the Tiger behaved. Having caught the man, he amused himself for some time by letting him go, and then dodging him as the poor victim tried to escape, before killing him outright, notwithstanding the shouts and yells of the two spectators."
There are divers opinions as to the exact mode by which a Tiger takes its prey. Popularly he is supposed to lie in ambush, and spring on his victim as it passes his lair; or, by watching at a pool, awaits the arrival of animals in quest of water. These
