262 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



bushes for a tiger to lie concealed within a few feet of the shikari, 

 without being noticed by an inexperienced eye. When they had gone 

 down about 1 80 yards, Mr. Osmaston's side of the ravine became too 

 precipitous for him to walk along it, and he accordingly descended 

 to the bottom with considerable difficulty over rocks, bushes and fallen 

 trees. Meanwhile Mr. Hansard was walking parallel to him about .0 

 yards off on the steep slope immediately above. ' Suddenly,' to use 

 Mr. Osmaston's own words, * I heard a thud followed by a series of 

 short, snappish, angry growls and at the same moment I heard the 

 groans and cries for help of Hansard crushed to the ground by the 

 tigress and struggling, face downwards, to get free. The tigress 

 appeared to be tearing his neck and face with her claws. As quickly 

 as I could, I levelled the double 12-bore at the brute, and although 

 I was very much afraid of hitting Hansard, I knew it was the poor 

 fellow's last chance. So I pulled'the trigger, and to my relief saw the 

 brute relax her hold and come rolling down the precipitous slope 

 which ended in a 15-foot drop, nearly sheer. The tigress never ceased 

 her hideous growlingeven to the moment when she fell into the ravine 

 and lay there in the water within a couple of yards of me. I was 

 hemmed in on both sides, so I knew that if she was still capable of 

 doing damage, it was all up with me. In sheer desperation, as my 

 last chance, I fired the second barrel into her, and springing down 

 the precipitous ravine — a feat which I don't think I could possibly 

 perform a second time— T rushed up the side of the ravine and made 

 or the place where 1 had seen Hansard lying, his face all gory and 

 apparently dying. I could not, however, find him, and I rushed 

 back to camp, the direction of which I more or less knew, across 

 several spurs and ravines.' 



'' What happened to Mr. Hansard was this : — As he walked down 

 the slope, the tigress must have perceived him and allowed him to 

 pass on, probably then stalking him. At any rate she sprang upon 

 him from behind, bearing him down at once. Fortunately all but one 

 of her canines had been reduced to mere stumps, and it was probably 

 because she knew this, and also because the slope was so steep, that 

 she attempted to do little more than claw him. Even with her worn- 

 down teeth, if she had seized his head between her jaws, she must 

 have crunched his skull into fragments. Actually she clawed his face 

 and back, dislocating the jaw, but the only dangerous wound she 

 inflicted was with her solitary effective canine, making a hole just 

 behind the ear and penetrating to the back of the mouth. It was a 



