Hints on Shooting. 253
thing; and to show wonderful craft, walking round and round the object in narrowing circles, and stopping to graze unconcernedly, on witnessing the least sign of alarm. Oxen are taught to obey a touch on the horn : the common but cruel way of training therniis to hammer and batter the horns for hours together, and on many days successively : they then become inflamed at the root and are highly sensitive.
Pan-hunting (used at salt-licks). Pan-hunting is a method of hunting deer at night. An iron pan attached to a long stick, serving as a handle, is carried in the left hand over the left shoulder ; near where the hand grasps the handle, is a small projecting stick, forming a fork on which to rest the rifle, when firing. The pan is filled with burning pine-knots, which, being saturated with turpentine, shed a brilliant and constant light all around ; shining into the eyes of any deer that may come in that direction, and making them look like two balls of fire. The effect is most curious to those unaccustomed to it. The distance between the eyes of the deer as he approaches, appears gradually to increase, reminding one of the lamps of a travelling carriage." (Palliser.)
The rush of an enraged Animal is far more easily avoided than is usually supposed. The way the Spanish bull-fighters play with the bull, is well known : any man can avoid a mere headlong charge. Even the speed of a racer, which is undeniably far greater than any wild quadruped, does not exceed 30 miles an hour or four times the speed of a man. The speed of an ordinary horse is not more than 24 miles an hour : now even the fastest wild beast is unable to catch an ordinary horse, except by crawling unobserved close to his side, and springing upon him; therefore I am convinced that the rush of no wild animal exceeds 24 miles an hour, or three times the speed of a man. (See Measurements of the rate of an animal's gallop, p. 37.) It is perfectly easy for a person who is cool, to avoid an animal, by dodging to one side or other of a bush. Few animals turn, if the rush be unsuccessful. The buffalo is an exception; he regularly hunts a man, and is therefore peculiarly dangerous. Unthinking persons talk of the fearful rapidity of a lion or tiger's spring. It is not rapid at all : it is a slow movement, as must be evident from
