ock, which may be shot with impunity. Although a highly
chivalrous chap in questions of the fairer sex, I am yet to see why it
is allowable to render the female bird a bereaved widow, but totally
forbidden to make the male a widower! Or why it is permissible to slay a
minute bird such as a snipe, while a titlark is on no account to be
touched.

Being eventually exasperated by these unreasonable faultfindings, seeing
that I had merely emptied my gun-barrels without actually destroying any
of these sacred volatiles, I addressed the keeper in the withering tones
of a sarcasm: "Mister Keeper," I said, "as I am not the ornithologist or
soothsayer to distinguish infallibly every species of bird by instinct
when flying with incredible velocity, would it not be better that I
should discharge no shots in future?"

To which, abashed by my severity, he replied that he could not just say
that it would make any considerable difference whether I fired at all or
none.

My fellow-shooters, however, could not refrain from shouting with
irrepressible admiration at the intrepidity with which, forestalling the
fleetest dogs, I did rush forward to pick up the fallen grouse-birds,
and repeatedly exhorted me to take greater care for my own safety.

I cannot say that they exhibited equivalent courageousness, seeing that,
so often as I raised my gun to fire, they flung themselves upon their
stomachs in the heather until I had finished, upon which I rallied them
mercilessly upon their timidity, assuring them repeatedly that they had
nothing to fear.

Yet English and Scotch alike accuse us Bengalees of being subject to
excessive funkiness. What about the Pot and the Kettle, Misters?

I am to reserve the conclusion of my shooting experiences until a future
occasion.

XXV

_Mr Jabberjee concludes the thrilling account of his experiences on a
Scotch moor, greatly to his own glorification._

Now to resume the rather arbitrarily truncated account of my gunnery on
Scottish moors.

Before luncheon I ventured to remonstrate earnestly with my entertainer,
Mr BAGSHOT, Q.C., concerning the extreme severity with which he
chastised a juvenile sporting hound of his for such trivial offences as
running after some rabbit, or picking up slaughtered volatiles without
receiving the _mot d'ordre_!

"Listen, honourable Sir," I entreated him, "to the voice of Reason! It
is the second nature of all such canines to pursue vermins, nor are they