xm THE TIGER AND THE LEOPARD 395 



it will also voluntarily enter the water, and can swim consider- 

 able rivers. 



Mr. H. X. Kidley 1 observes that Tigers " habitually swim 

 over to Singapore across the Johore Strait, usually by way of the 

 intermediate islands of Pulau Ubin and Pulau Tekong. They 

 make the passage at night, landing in the early morning. As so 

 much of the coast is mangrove swamp, and the animals do not 

 risk going through the mud, they are only able to qross where 

 the shores are sandy, and thus they have regular starting- and 

 landing-places." 



The Tiger is mainly nocturnal, but begins its depredations 

 towards five o'clock in the afternoon, before which it remains 

 sleeping in shady thickets. If the weather is rainy and windy 

 it becomes restless and wanders about earlier. Under the provo- 

 cation of extreme hunger it will hunt during the daytime. 

 Hunger, too, naturally produces extreme boldness. Mr. Kidley 

 relates a story of four Tigers who walked up the steps of a house 

 in search of the master of the house or his dog, and broke into 

 it, the inhabitants retiring in their favour. The Malays have 

 superstitions about Tigers, which are precisely paralleled by the 

 man-and-wolf stories of Europe. " Certain people are supposed 

 to have the power of turning into tigers for a short time, and 

 resuming their human form at pleasure. The transformation 

 commences tail first, and the human tiger is so completely 

 changed that not only has it all the actions and appearance of 

 the tiger, but on resuming its human form it is quite unconscious 

 of what it has been doing in the tiger state.", Mr. Kidley dis- 

 putes the common stories as to man-eaters. If a Tiger has once 

 tasted human flesh it does not always confine itself afterwards to 

 that article of diet, nor is it only aged and comparatively tooth- 

 less animals which hunt man. That they do take a large toll of 

 coolies is an undoubted fact, and many are the artifices to prevent 

 the rest from knowing the fate of one of their fellow-workmen, or 

 of becoming acquainted with the presence in the neighbourhood 

 of one of the dreaded beasts. 



The Leopard or Panther, F. pardvs, is, like the Lion, African 

 and Asiatic in range. The animal is spotted with rosettes of 

 black spots surrounding a central field of the tawny colour of the 

 body generally. Some of the spots are solid and black. " The 



1 Natural Science., vi. 1895, p. 89. 



