elves on this in the late afternoon. Contrary
to custom, the tiger did not come back to his kill until after the sun
had set. The night was cloudy and very dark, and although several times
we distinctly heard the tiger eating the buffalo, we could not see
it. At about midnight we were extremely stiff, and not hearing any
sound, we returned to our temporary camp; but on the advice of an old
shikari I returned with him to the _machan_ to wait until
daylight. Being tired, I fell asleep, but an hour before dawn the Hindu
woke me, as the clouds had cleared away and the moon was shining
brightly. I heard a munching sound, and could dimly discern a yellow
form by the buffalo, and taking a long aim I fired both barrels of my
rifle. I heard nothing except the scuttling off of the hyenas and
jackals that had been attracted by the dead buffalo, so I slept again
until daylight, when, to my surprise, I saw a dead leopard by the
buffalo. He had come to the kill after the tiger had finished his meal.

_John H. Prentice_.

[Illustration: INDIAN LEOPARD.]

Big-Game Refuges

Since the inception of the Boone and Crockett Club its plans and
purposes have changed not a little. Originally organized for social
purposes, for the encouragement of big-game hunting, and the procuring
of the most effective weapons with which to secure the game, it has,
little by little, come to be devoted to the broader object of benefiting
this and succeeding generations by preserving a stock of large game. It
is still made up of enthusiastic riflemen, and their love of the chase
has not abated. But, since the Club's formation, an astonishing change
has come over natural conditions in the United States--a change which,
fifteen or twenty years ago, could not have been foreseen. The
extraordinary development of the whole Western country, with the
inevitable contraction of the range of all big game, and the absolute
reduction in the numbers of the game consequent on its destruction by
skin hunters, head hunters and tooth hunters, has obliged the Boone and
Crockett Club, in absolute self-defense, and in the hope that its
efforts may save some of the species threatened with extinction, to turn
its attention more and more to game protection.

The Club was established in 1888. The buffalo had already been swept
away. Since that date two species of elk have practically disappeared
from the land, one being still represented by a few individuals which
for some