He had scarcely uttered the words, when up flustered a huge bird from under the elephants feet, towering perpendicularly overhead; his burnished throat, golden hues, and long sweeping tail, proclaimed him at once a wild peacock. I endeavoured to cover him, but all in vain, my gun’s muzzles, like the poet’s eye, were alternately directed “from earth to heaven,” through the up-and-down motion of the elephant. However, I blazed away both barrels, but without touching a feather. On attaining a certain elevation, he struck off horizontally, wings expanded, cleaving the air like a meteor; but, passing to the rear of my companion, he, with the greatest _sang-froid_, rose, turned round in his howdah, and dropped him as dead as a stone, amidst cries of _lugga lugga_ (“hit”)! _mara_ (“killed”)! and _wau, wau_ (“bravo”)! It is not considered very sportsmanlike to shoot the full-grown peacock in India; the chicks are, however, capital eating, and are often bagged. In this instance, the judge had evidently brought down the peacock for my gratification; this I inferred from his immediately sending it to me by one of his horsemen, who hoisted it up into the howdah at the end of his spear. As we advanced farther into the long grass, evidences of the deserved character of the spot began to thicken around us; black partridges rose every moment, and the judge tumbled them over right and left, but not a feather could I touch. Our line now made a sweep, with a view to emerging from the grass, and immediately a beautiful sight presented itself; it was a whole herd of antelopes, roused by our beaters from their repose, and which went off before us, bounding with the grace of Taglioni. Two sharp cracks, and _lugga, lugga!_ proclaimed that Mr. Sympkin had laid an embargo on one or more of them. This proved to be the case, and a fine black buck antelope, with spiral horns and a white streak down his side, and a fawn about half-grown, were soon seen dangling from the broad quarters of the elephant. On approaching the very verge of the long grass, a cry of _sewer, sewer!_ was followed by a wild hog’s bolting. I fired at him, and put a few shots in the hindquarters of one of the judge’s horses, who thereat reared and plunged, jerked off his rider’s cap, and had nearly dismounted the rider himself, whom I could hear muttering a few curses at my awkwardness. The judge also discharged a brace of barrels at him, but he got off, and we saw him for a great distance scouring across the plain. Having issued from the grass, the judge drove his elephant alongside of mine. “Well, how do you get on? I fear you found what I said correct, eh? You haven’t hit much?” “Much! I haven’t hit anything, sir, except one of your sowars’ horses, I am sorry to say: it is most tantalizing! I doubt if ever I should succeed in striking an object from an elephant.”