Nothing emphasises the amazing stealth of these silent creatures more than such incidents: when suddenly you find, within twenty yards, a wild beast, standing nearly two feet at shoulder, slowly approaching through quite thin bush; how, in wonder's name, did it get so near unseen? Foxes, as a rule, come bundling along with far less precaution and no such vigilant look-out ahead, though they will instantly detect the least _movement_ in front. A fox will often appear so deep in thought as to be absolutely thunderstruck when he finds himself face to face with a gun at six yards distance. In direst consternation he fairly bounds around, describing a complete circle of fur; whereas a cat in like circumstance merely deflects her course with coolest deliberation and never a sign of alarm or increase of speed. But within six more yards she will have vanished from view--covert or none. Adepts all are the cats, alike in appearing one knows not whence, and in disappearing one knows not how. Yonder goes a fox, slowly trotting along below the crest, in his self-sufficient, nonchalant style. His upstanding fur, long bushy brush, and swollen neck appear to double his bulk and lend him quite an imposing figure. But let a rifle-ball sing past his ears or dash up a cloud of the sand below--what a transformation! One hardly now recognises the long lean streak that whips up and over the ridge. A handsome trophy is the Spanish lynx, especially those more brightly coloured examples sparsely spotted with big black splotches arranged, more or less, in interrupted lines. The ear-tufts--indeed in adults the extreme tips of the ears themselves--point inwards and backwards; and the narrow irides are pale yellow (between lemon and hazel), the pupil being full, round, and black, nearly filling the circle. In the wild-cat the pupil is a thin upright, set in a cruel pale-green iris. We have tried FIRE as a means of securing the smaller _alimañas_, such as mongoose, but it is seldom a thicket or _mancha_ can be so completely isolated as to leave no line of escape. The animals, moreover, are astute enough to retire under cover of the clouds of smoke that roll away to leeward. 2. LONG DRIVES, extending over, say, a couple of miles of brush-wood (which may contain half-a-dozen patches of thicker jungle, all separate), give wide scope for skilled fieldcraft and demand no small local knowledge. The first essential is "an eye for a country." There are men to whom this faculty is denied; some seem incapable of acquiring it. Others, again, appear correctly to diagnose even a difficult country, with its chances, almost at a first experience. The favoured haunts of game, together with their accustomed lines of retreat when disturbed, must be studied. Each day, though engaged on other pursuit, one's eye should be reading those lessons that are written in "spoor," and noting each commanding point and salient angle or other local "advantage" in the terrain.