Yet sitting up is not without its charm. While daylight lasts it is interesting to watch the carrion feeders hastening to snatch a mouthful of the feast Chance has provided for them, always on the alert lest the rightful owner of the banquet should suddenly appear. High overhead a dim speck is seen against the sky. It grows larger and clearer, sinks down and, wheeling in great circles, reveals itself as a vulture. Another and another follow and, gradually descending, perch on the trees around. An impudent grey-headed crow pushes in before them and alights close to the dead cow. Then hopping on to the carcass it cocks its head impertinently at the less courageous vultures and begins to dig its beak into the putrid flesh. The big birds flop heavily to the ground and with much rustling of wings, shoving, hustling, angry squawks and vicious pecks at each other, begin their meal. But up fly the birds as a couple of jackals make their appearance and slink furtively to the kill. While they feed they look around apprehensively and start at every sound. The vultures flap over towards the dead cow again and demand their share of the good things that Chance has provided. The jackals snarl and snap at them, driving them off with short rushes. But suddenly they bolt themselves, as a dozen fox-like little beasts with reddish skins, sharp ears and handsome brushes trot up to the kill. These are the dreaded wild dogs which decimate the game in the jungle. They hungrily tear at the flesh, quarrelling and snapping at each other, ready to fly if the tiger appears. If the carcass is near water a white-and-black, long-legged bird is certain to be hovering about, crying plaintively and incessantly: "Did he do it? Did he--did he--did he do it?" until the exasperated watcher in the tree longs to shoot him. Then the sun sets, the noises of the day sink into silence; but the jungle wakes. In the forest below Buxa lived a very large tiger which vexed my soul exceedingly. Generations of commanding officers had pursued him in vain; and the task was handed down as a legacy from each to his successor for years. Fired at once, and possibly wounded, over a live cow tied up as bait, he was never to be tempted to approach another. Inspired to compass his death by the impressions of his huge paws, which I often found in the sand of river-beds, I had three cows tied up for weeks in different _nullahs_. In the daytime a man whom I employed for the purpose took them to graze and water and fastened them up again before dark. At first I used to sit up in a tree over one or other of them night after night without result. Then I resolved to wait until he had killed one. It was equally fruitless. For, although his "pugs" or footprints, were often to be traced coming up the _nullah_ and diverging towards the cow tied up in it, they always showed that he had turned abruptly and made off as soon as he discovered the nature of the bait.