This section is from the book "Sport In The Low-Country Of Ceylon", by Alfred Clark. Also available from Amazon: Sport in the Low-Country of Ceylon.
DON'T call leopards "cheetahs," or sambhur "elk," or cheetul "spotted deer," or muntjak "red-deer."
Don't break the game laws, however much you may be tempted, or however small the chance of detection.
Don't break them under the very poor excuse that others, notably natives, do so.
If you will do it, don't ever afterwards speak of native hunters as "poachers."
Don't forget that your object is "sport " pure and simple. Consequently don't adopt native methods of killing game.
Don't fire at deer and pigs at drinking-places by moonlight.
Don't fire at any creature which is neither dangerous, nor has trophies of any value or interest, nor is fit to eat.
Don't fire at cow-elephants, cow-buffaloes, hinds, does or sows, or immature male animals.
If you will shoot cow-elephants and cow-buffaloes, don't plead in excuse that otherwise you would have got no "sport," for the admission will prove you to have been actuated by mere blood-thirstiness and not genuine sporting instinct.
If you will shoot hinds and does, don't try to make your friends believe that you did so to provide food for your men. They will know well enough that if you had made proper arrangements for provisioning your party, such slaughter would have been unnecessary.
Don't murder monkeys, either wantonly or to provide some lady-friend with a "dear little baby-monkey."
Don't fire if there is no reasonable chance of killing, e.g., when the animal is bolting directly from you, or through dense under-wood, or is standing in a bad light.
Don't use buck-shot to kill deer or pigs.
Unless you are a dead shot and have first-class nerves, don't use small-bore rifles (except for long range shooting) or light guns. For your own sake and that of the game you go after, use the heaviest and most paralyzing weapons you can afford to buy, or are able to carry.
Don't y when pleased with yourself, make extravagant presents to trackers and others, out of all proportion to their services, thus spoiling the chances of poorer men getting sport at reasonable cost.
If anything strange happens to you when out shooting don't relate the incident in the presence of persons who are not sportsmen, or who know nothing of the habits of wild beasts ; or what King David said in his haste of all men will probably be applied to you in particular.
Don't take a loaded gun into a house or tent.
Don't lay a loaded gun on the bottom of a cart or trap.
If you will do it, don't, in your haste to get a shot, draw it out with the muzzle towards you.
Don't carry a gun cross-wise, but on the shoulder, if on the tramp, or against the hip, pointing forwards, if near game.
Don't go bending or crawling through dense jungle, or scrambling over rocks, with the gun on full-cock.
Don't raise your gun to your shoulder till you have wheeled to your shot.
Don't, turning as on a pivot, blindly follow with your (run at your shoulder, game bolting or flying to the right or left, if you would avoid giving your friends occasion for blasphemy.
Don't fire over a ducking man.
Don't dig the end of your rifle into the ground in your eagerness when stalking game on all fours and pushing the weapon before you, or you may choke the muzzle with earth and get a nasty jar when you fire, if no worse thing happen to you.
Don't forget, when about to fire, that bullets and shot will glance off rocks and trees.
Don't keep a gun on full-cock a moment longer than is necessary.
Don't half-cock your gun carelessly. Ease down the hammer and then draw it back with a click, when you will have a firm half-cock which will not jar off.
Don't uncock your gun on a rainy day till you are sure it is pointing into space, for the wet hammer may slip from your thumb as you ease the trigger and so explode the charge.
Some guns have very small back-set hammers. Don't lower these till you have opened the breech.
Some men have a foolish habit of frequently pointing their guns at objects at which they do not intend to fire. Dont do it.
Don't leave your guns tobe cleaned by your servants. Don't fire at an object moving in the dark until you are quite certain what it is. The Coroner may make himself objectionable about it.
Don't expose yourself unnecessarily to the sun ; and not at all to chills, by sitting in damp clothes, etc.
On your return to camp, hot, tired and thirsty, after a long tramp in the sun, don't immediately gulp down a bottle of beer or a whiskey and soda, but sip your drink slowly while you cool down.
If you will disregard these precautions, don't, on your return home, attribute your illness to "drinking bad water."
Lastly, when you get home from a low-country shooting trip, safe and well, don't measure its success by the number of animal-lives you took, but think of the elephants you saw by moonlight drinking at the tank, of the butting-match between two bucks out in the open which you watched through your glasses, of the monkeys which gambolled undisturbed in the tree over your tent, of the night when Jones stepped out of bed into an army of venomous "kaddiyar" ants, and the recording-angel had to resort to shorthand to take down his remarks, of the appearance Smith presented after he had rashly undertaken to cut a honey-comb out of a tree, of the delightful evenings round the blazing camp fire, and all the other incidents of the trip, exciting or comical, which more than justify you in saying you had "a jolly good time," though you may not have brought back a single decent trophy.
 
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