In recrossing the dhar or water-course, we took care to avoid the quicksands, and as we did not expect to fall in with another tiger, we indulged in a little general firing.  I shot a fine buck through the spine, and we bagged several deer, and no less than five florican; this bird is allied to the bustard family, and has beautiful drooping feathers, hanging in plumy pendants of deep black and pure white, intermingled in the most graceful and showy manner.  The male is a magnificent bird, and has perhaps as fine plumage as any bird on the border; the flesh yields the most delicate eating of any game bird I know; the slices of mingled brown and white from the breast are delicious.  The birds are rather shy, generally getting up a long way in front of the line, and moving with a slow, rather clumsy, flight, not unlike the flight of the white earth owl.  They run with great swiftness, and are rather hard to kill, unless hit about the neck and head.  There are two sorts, the lesser and the greater, the former also called the bastard florican.  Altogether they are noble looking birds, and the sportsman is always glad to add as many florican as he can to his bag.

We were now nearing the locality of the fierce fire of the morning; it was still blazing in a long extended line of flame, and we witnessed an incident without parallel in the experience of any of us.  I fired at and wounded a large stag; it was wounded somewhere in the side, and seemed very hard hit indeed.  Maddened probably by terror and pain, it made straight for the line of fire, and bounded unhesitatingly right into the flame.  We saw it distinctly go clean though the flames, but we could not see whether it got away with its life, as the elephants would not go up to the fire.  At all events, the stag went right through his fiery ordeal, and was lost to us.  We started numerous hares close to camp, and S. bowled over several.  They are very common in the short grass jungle, where the soil is sandy, and are frequently to be found among thin jowah jungle; they afford good sport for coursing, but are neither so fleet, nor so large, nor such good eating as the English hare.  In fact, they are very dry eating, and the best way to cook them is to jug them, or make a hunter’s pie, adding portions of partridge, quail, or plover, with a few mushrooms, and a modicum of ham or bacon if these are procurable.

We reached camp pretty late, and sent off venison, birds, and other spoils to Mrs. S. and to Inamputte factory.  Our bag shewed a diversity of spoil, consisting of one tiger, seven hog-deer, one bear (Ursus labialis), seventeen jungle fowl, five florican, and six hares.  It was no bad bag considering that during most of the day we had been beating solely for tiger.  We could have shot many more deer and jungle fowl, but we never try to shoot more than are needed to satisfy the wants of the camp.  Were we to attempt to shoot at all the deer and pig that we see, the figures would reach very large totals.