and an open air life is an agreeable one, so agreeable that, though from accidents of fortune no longer dependent on coffee, I still find it the most pleasant life in the world, and return to it annually with pleasure, and I think that the mere enumeration of the varied forms of animal life, which are so interesting both to the sportsman and the naturalist, will go far to justify my conclusions.  Having thus glanced at a part of the fauna of the province, I now proceed to the big game shooting section of my chapter, but, before doing so, I may mention that it is stated in the “Mysore Gazetteer” (Vol.  II., p. 13) that, according to old legends, the lion was once to be found in the Province.

Of elephants, and elephant shooting, I have had no experience.  In Mysore and in British India they are reserved by the State which, from time to time, captures the elephants by driving them into large inclosures, and there is a record of one of the sales of captured elephants in my second chapter.  But the reader need not regret my want of experience here, as it would be difficult for any one to add to the admirable and exhaustive account of elephants and their ways which is to be found in the late Mr. Sanderson’s[15] admirable work.  His death is really much to be lamented, for he was not merely a destructive sportsman, but an intelligent and sympathetic observer of the wild animals he lived amongst, and I think I am only repeating current opinion when I say that a more admirable and interesting work of its kind never was written.  Mr. Sanderson, I may mention, was specially employed by Government to superintend the capture of herds of elephants, and also to hunt man-eating tigers, and tigers of obnoxious character.

Tigers, as to which I shall have, I am afraid, rather too long an account to give, are fairly numerous in the forests of the Western Ghauts, and some other parts of the country, if I may judge by the fact that rewards were paid for 68 in 1874, and for 100 in 1875, but in former times they were much more numerous in certain parts of the province, a fact which is testified to by General Dobbs, who when a young man was in civil employ in the Chittledroog division of Mysore in 1834.  He mentions in his “Reminiscences of Life in Mysore"[16] that his division was infested with wild beasts and, to reduce their numbers, he obtained from one of the officials a plan of a pit 12 feet long, 12 feet deep, and 2-1/2 feet wide, closed with brushwood at both sides and one end.  Wooden spikes were fixed at the bottom, and the top of the pit was covered over with light brushwood.  A sheep or goat was then tied inside at the closed end, where there was standing place left for it.  As tigers usually spring on their prey they are thus sure to fall through the light brushwood into the pit.  “In a short time,” writes the general, “48 royal tigers were thus destroyed, four of which were brought to me on one morning.  Mr. Stokes, the superintendent