RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29872, 12 July 1962, Page 17

RANDOM REMINDER

TAME GAME

Hunters are rather like fishermen. If a hunter finds some isolated area so teeming with game of various sorts that it is possible to knock over the livestock while reclining in a hammock, he keeps quiet about it The same self-interest is evident among gatherers of mushrooms. But occasionally there is a man big enough to spread the word when he has found something worth-while. So it was that a very keen Christchurch hunter was told by a friend of what was apparently a pig-shooter’s paradise in the Lewis Pass area. The picture painted of the shooting available was so lurid that the hunter

positively drooled. He did more than that. He raised a small army of friends and plans were made for a mass assault. As the expedition neared its goal, so was its appetite whetted. But finally it was quite clear that they had arrived; for there were the pigs, dozens of them, fat, and insolent in their indolence.

The chief of the hunting expedition singled out a porker whose contours suggested a sedentary occupation. He raised his rifle. But to his horror, instead of a natural, unadorned ear, he saw an obvious ear-marking. The alarm was given and the hunters withdrew hastily.

But not hastily enough.

The owners of the pigs made a dramatic entrance and. not unnaturally, asked what al) the men were doing there. They replied, through their embarrassment, that a little hunting had been planned. The owner made it known, tersely, that the pigs were tame. The hunters emitted little cries of surprise. The owner of the animals then delivered a brief address, rebuking the trespassers and desecrators. The farmer added that if he could lay his hands on the indescribable idiot who had shot one of his pig 9 the week before, blood would be spilt. No-one spoke. But ona of the expedition slowly turned bright pink.