Jungle Lore by Jim Corbett

Author:Jim Corbett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jungle Book

So that winter I went down to Kaladhungi armed with a rifle, and without any anxiety about ammunition. The rifle the good Sergeant-Major had selected for me was dead accurate, and though a 450 rifle firing a heavy bullet may not have been the best type of weapon for a boy to train on, it served my purpose. The bow and arrow had enabled me to penetrate farther into the jungles than the catapult, and the muzzle-loader had enabled me to penetrate farther than the bow and arrow; and now, armed with a rifle, the jungles were open to me to wander in wherever I chose to go.

Fear stimulates the senses of animals, keeps them *on dieir toes', and adds zest to the joy of life; fear can do die same for human beings. Fear had taught me to move noiselessly, to climb trees, to pin-point sound; and now, in order to penetrate into the deepest recesses of the jungle and enjoy the best in nature, it was essential to learn how to use my eyes, and how to use my rifle

A human being has a field of vision of 180 degrees, and ♦.vhen in a jungle in which all forms of life are to«be met with, including poisonous snakes and animals that have been wounded by others, it is necessary to train the eyes to cover the entire field of vision. Movements straight in front are easy to detect and easy to deal with, but movements at the edge of the field of vision an- vague and indistinct and it is these vague and mrlistmrt movements that can be most dangerous, and are most to bt i* -itred. Nothing in the jungle is deliberately aggressive, \*ui drctfllMtafteea may arise to make some creature so, and it ie ipfctd lb possibility of these ehancv happenings that the

mmi be trained. On one occasion the darting in and out

of fht forked tongiif ol a cobra In a hollow tree, and on another

"i th moving of the tip of the tail of a wounded leopard

lying behind a bush, warned mc just in time that the cobra

JUNGLE LORE

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was on the point of striking and the leopard on the point of springing. On both these occasions I had been looking straight in front, and the movements had taken place at the extreme *^*-edge of my field of vision.

The muzzle-loader had taught me to economize ammunition and now, when 1 had a rifle, I considered it wasteful to practise on a fixed target, so I practised on jungle-fowl and on peafowl, and I can recall only one instance of having spoilt a bird for the table. I never grudged the time spent, or the trouble taken, in stalking a bird and getting a shot, and when I attained sufficient accuracy with the rifle to place the heavy 450 bullet exactly where I wanted to, I gained confidence to hunt in those areas of the jungle into which I previously been too frightened to go.

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