Upon Discovering The Tracks Their Date Is Immediately Known, The Vicinity Of The Game Is Surmised, The Tracks Are Followed Up, And The Herd Is At Length Discovered.

The wind is observed; dry leaves crumbled into powder and let fall from the hand detect the direction if the slightest air is stirring, and the approach is made accordingly.

Every stone, every bush or tree or tuft of grass, is noted as a cover for an advance, and the body being kept in a direct line with each of these objects, you approach upon hands and knees from each successive place of shelter till a proper distance is gained. The stalking is the most exciting sport in the world. I have frequently heard my own heart beat while creeping up to a deer. He is an animal of wonderful acuteness, and possessing the keenest scent; he is always on the alert, watching for danger from his stealthy foe the leopard, who is a perfect deer-stalker.

To kill spotted deer well, if they are tolerably wild, a person must be a really good rifle shot, otherwise wise he will wound many, but seldom bag one. They are wonderfully fast, and their bounding pace makes them extremely difficult to hit while running. Even when standing they must be struck either through the head, neck, or shoulder, or they will rarely be killed on the spot; in any other part, if wounded, they will escape as though untouched, and die a miserable death in solitude.

In narrating long shots that I have made, I recount them as bright moments in the hours of sport; they are the exceptions and not the rule. I consider a man a first-rate shot who can ALWAYS bag his deer standing at eighty yards, or running at fifty. HITTING and BAGGING are widely different. If a man can always bag at the distance that I have named he will constantly hit, and frequently bag, at extraordinary ranges, as there is no doubt of his shooting, and, when he misses, the ball has whizzed somewhere very close to the object; the chances are, therefore, in favour of the rifle.

The deer differ in character in various parts of Ceylon. In some places where they are rarely disturbed they can be approached to within thirty or forty paces, in which case a very moderate shot can easily kill them; but it is better sport when they are moderately wild. The greatest number of deer that I ever saw was in the south-eastern part of Ceylon, in the neighbourhood of Pontane and Yalle. The whole of this country is almost uninhabited, and accordingly undisturbed. Yalle is the nearest town of importance, from which a good road, lined on either side with cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees, extends as far as Tangalle, fifty miles. A few miles beyond this village the wild country begins, and Hambantotte is the next station, nearly ninety miles from Yalle. The country around Hambantotte is absolutely frightful-wide extending plains of white sand and low scrubby bushes scattered here and there; salt lakes of great extent, and miserable plains of scanty herbage, surrounded by dense thorny jungles.

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