Kôle country—Chybasa—which had been killed
with one shot by a mere stripling, some sixteen
or seventeen years old, who seemed much more
engaged in admiring the flowers in front of my
house, than interested in the recital of his
prowess, made to me by his comrades and the
head man of the village.

Those who have engaged in tiger-shooting
excursions, either on foot or on elephants,
know full well how many shots the brute
sometimes takes. And such instances of quick work
as the two above cited may surprise the most
experienced sportsman.

I have already observed that where population
is exceedingly scarce, the tiger loses much
of his skulking, hiding disposition, and attacks
his prey in the open. In 1837, or '38, a lad
herding cattle in the village lands of Koorsee,
near Chaïbasa, was pursued over a meadow, and
through the herd, and was killed by a tiger, who
had begun to eat him when scared away by the
villagers. I saw the body; it lay in the midst
of an open field, at least two hundred yards
from any cover. It was disembowelled, and
with the chest torn wide open; but the face was
as that of one who lies in a pleasant sleep.

The enormous forearm of the tiger has often
attracted attention. We have seen a cat pat a
dead mouse, or the face of a dog which was
teazing her, and it is easy to understand what a
tremendous blow a tiger could give in the same
manner; but I believe it to be a mistake to
suppose that he strikes down his prey with his paw.
He strikes in self-defence and when fighting,
but not when seizing his victim. I have seen
many carcases of deer, cattle, buffaloes and
horses, which had been killed by tigers, and they
all had the same appearance; four deep holes
at the back of the neck (two of them on each
side the cervical vertebræ), made by the animal's
incisor teeth; no other mark. Of course, if the
tiger had begun to feed on the body, it was
extensively lacerated. And if (as sometimes in
the case of a buffalo) the prey had struggled
much, and had succeeded in dragging the tiger
a few yards, the chest and forelegs would bear
the impression of the claws and the tremendous
grip, but these, as far as my experience goes,
were exceptional cases.

It is evident that the tiger, in seizing his prey,
rushes on to its back, grips the neck with his
jaws as with a vice, and, with his arms confining
the animal's struggles, lies there upon his
victim, until it is suffocated. With a human
being I know not how the case is. A tiger has
been seen to seize and carry off a man by the
neck, or the arm, or thigh, indifferently. In
the well-known cases of Major Colnett and
Captain Fenwick, they were both seized by the
thigh, and carried off, it is said, on the animal's
back. More recently, a Captain Hill,
superintendent of police in Burma, was gripped by the
neck, and there held until the arrival of his
people rescued him from his awful position. In
1846, in Mâubhoom, near Midnapore, I was out
after a tiger, on foot, and having wounded him
severely, was searching for him in the jungle
with a number of beaters. Three times we came
upon him, and each time he broke cover by
charging through the mob of us. Once, he
struck a man on the chest, knocking him over,
and scratching him severely. Next time he
seized one of the beaters in his jaws, by the
thigh, giving him a rapid shake and passing
on. But these are all cases in which the animal
was acting in self-defence, or in retaliation.
What I have said above, refers to its usual
mode of capturing its food.

The averment in our "natural history" books,
that the tiger disdains to touch carrion, is quite
untrue. The same rhetoric is indulged in
regarding the eagle, and is equally erroneous.
The lion, also, the "king of beasts," is, I
believe, as little scrupulous as any other cat, in
this particular. I have described how the tiger
captures and kills his prey. When dead, if the
body lie convenient to his covert, he lets it
remain; if it be too far out in the open, it is
dragged further in towards the jungle, and there
left until towards dawn. Sometimes the body
is disembowelled after being removed a little
way, and is then drawn away to some hidden
spot. A leopard has been seen to disembowel a.
goat, holding it by the throat, lying on its back
underneath the body, and ripping it open by
repeated kicks with its hind claws. Probably
the tiger operates by the same method. He
appears to prefer a rumpsteak, or a round, to
any other portion. These are almost always
the first part eaten, then the ribs, rarely the
fore-quarters, and never, within my knowledge,
the head.

The following little anecdote, while it
illustrates this, affords a pretty good specimen of
the tiger's caution, of the silence of his
approach, and of his immense strength. In the
cold weather of 1838, near the same village of
Koorsee where the herd-boy had been killed,
I was one day shown the body of a cow, which;
a tiger had just struck down. It lay close to
some rather thin jungle, near a ridge of low
rocks; a few larger trees, such as mangoes,
were interspersed in the brushwood, and the
ground was covered with dead dried-up leaves:
so crisp, that it seemed impossible for an insect
even to pass over them without being heard.
It was then about noon, and I determined to
sit up for the tiger, who, we knew, would come
again at nightfall, or before next morning, to
devour the carcase. A charpaïe, or small native
bedstead, was speedily procured from the village,
and lashed across the fork of a mango-tree,
within a few paces of which lay the cow.
Before sunset I and my companion (our doctor)
were escorted to the spot by a body of armed
Kôles. I disembarrassed myself of a huge sola,
or pith hat, which I placed on the ground near
the tree, and in it I deposited a pair of
unwieldy dragoon's pistols (it was before the days
of "repeaters"), which I thought would be
useless in our elevated position. I also took off,
and left at the foot of the tree, a pair of thick
shooting-shoes, and then, with the help of my
village friends, gained the charpaïe, and sat