flowers; the birch-looking sheeshum or
sissod; the sombre looking sal; the shining, leathery-leafed bhur,
with its immense over-arching limbs, and the crisp, curly-leafed
elegant-looking jhamun or Indian olive, formed a paradise of sylvan
beauty, on which the eye dwelt till it was sated with the woodland
loveliness.

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