Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/382

358 of its large tidal branches, and at the widest part they were six hours in the water without touching the bottom. After resting for some time on a sandbank, they again took the water, and swam for three hours more, completing the journey in safety.

Mr. Sanderson's experience in the pursuit and capture of wild elephants, and the success of the method employed by him, enables him to speak as familiarly of catching a herd of elephants as a poacher would speak of driving partridges into a tunnel-net, or a fen-man of taking widgeon in a decoy. He once took fifty-three elephants in one "drive"!

But his book is not merely a record of sport, although it abounds with well-told adventures. It gives also some account of the natural history of the wild animals met with, and the reader, besides learning a good deal about forest life in India, obtains a very fair insight into the character, manners, and customs of the natives, amongst whom the author has lived so many years, and upon whose assistance he has had so largely to rely in carrying out his successful, though often dangerous, expeditions. "The peculiar opportunities," he says, "which have been afforded him of following his natural inclinations, and, by the nature of his duties, of encountering the wild animals of Southern India and Eastern Bengal, induced him to believe that his experiences might be of some interest to the general public, and perhaps of some service to the cause of Natural History." We think there can be no doubt that both the classes of readers referred to will highly appreciate his undertaking.

Although we have alluded in detail to only one of the large animals of which the book treats, the chapters on the others possess almost equal interest, not only on account of the information imparted concerning the range, habits, and instincts of the species mentioned, but also for the useful statistics and hints with which the narrative is interspersed, and which cannot fail to be of service to sportsmen in India.

pleasantly written book, by an anonymous author, com- mends itself to three classes of readers — to the inexperienced