suit of large game; people talk of "unoffending
elephants," "poor buffaloes," "pretty deer," and a variety of nonsense
about things which they cannot possibly understand. Besides, the very
person who abuses wild sports on the plea of cruelty indulges
personally in conventional cruelties which are positive tortures. His
appetite is not destroyed by the knowledge that his cook his skinned
the eels alive, or that the lobsters were plunged into boiling water to
be cooked. He should remember that a small animal has the same feeling
as the largest and if he condemns any sport as cruel, he must condemn
all.

There is no doubt whatever that a certain amount of cruelty pervades
all sports. But in "wild sports" the animals are for the most part
large, dangerous and mischievous, and they are pursued and killed in
the most speedy, and therefore in the most merciful, manner.

The government reward for the destruction of elephants in Ceylon was
formerly ten shillings per tail; it is now reduced to seven shillings
in some districts, and is altogether abolished in others, as the number
killed was so great that the government imagined they could not afford
the annual outlay.

Although the number of these animals is still so immense in Ceylon,
they must nevertheless have been much reduced within the last twenty
years. In those days the country was overrun with them, and some idea
of their numbers may be gathered from the fact that three first-rate
shots in three days bagged one hundred and four elephants. This was
told to me by one of the parties concerned, and it throws our modern
shooting into the shade. In those days, however, the elephants were
comparatively undisturbed, and they were accordingly more easy to
approach. One of the oldest native hunters has assured me that he has
seen the elephants, when attacked, recklessly expose themselves to the
shots and endeavour to raise their dead comrades. This was at a time
when guns were first heard in the interior of Ceylon, and the animals
had never been shot at. Since that time the decrease in the game of
Ceylon has been immense. Every year increases the number of guns in
the possession of the natives, and accordingly diminishes the number of
animals. From the change which has come over many parts of the country
within my experience of the last eight years, I am of opinion that the
next ten years will see the deer-shooting in Ceylon completely spoiled,
and the elephants very