34 NATURAL HISTORY. 



is checked by a rifle ball aimed at him through the jungle. 

 Finding that he cannot escape without being seen, he turns 

 round, and springs at the nearest elephant, endeavouring to 

 clamber up it, and attack the party in the howdah. This is 

 the most dangerous part of the proceedings, as many elephants 

 "will turn round and run away, regardless of the efforts of 

 their drivers to make them face the tiger. Should, however, 

 the elephant stand firm, a well-directed ball checks the tiger 

 in his spring, and he then endeavours again to escape, but a 

 volley of rifle balls from the backs of the other elephants, who 

 by this time have come up, lays the savage animal prostrate, 

 and in a very short time his skin decorates the successful 

 marksman's howdah. These hunts are not carried on without 

 considerable danger, as in some cases the tiger has succeeded 

 in reaching the howdah, and more than one hunter has been 

 known to overbalance himself in his anxiety to get a shot at 

 his game, and has fallen into the very claws of the enraged 

 brute. Once a wounded tiger sprang at a badly trained 

 elephant, who immediately turned round and made off. The 

 liger succeeded in reaching the elephant's tail, which it 

 mangled dreadfully, but could climb no higher, partly on 

 account of its wounds, and partly through the exertions of 

 a native, who kept it back with a spear. The tiger hung in 

 this way for the greater part of a mile, when another hunter 

 succeeded in overtaking the terrified elephant, and with a 

 single ball freed the poor animal from its tormentor. 



Tigers are usually taken by the natives in pitfalls, at the 

 bottom of which is planted a bamboo stake, the top of which 

 is sharpened into a point. The animal falls on the point and 

 is impaled. 



The general notion that tigers cannot be tamed is erroneous. 

 They can be tamed as easily as the lion ; but great caution 

 must be used with all wild animals, as in a moment of irrita- 

 tion their savage nature breaks out, and the consequences 

 have more than once proved fatal. The melancholy death of 

 the " Lion Q.ueen," in "Wombwell's Menagerie, is a recent 

 example of this propensity. 



In the British Museum are three cubs bred between a lion 

 and a tigress. They are not unlike lion cubs, but the stripes 

 are much darker, and the colour of the fur is brighter. 



