NOTES ON MAN-EATING TIGERS. 195 



NOTES ON MAN-EATING TIGERS. 



By Reginald Gilbert, Bombay. 



(Read at the Society's Meeting on 4:fh September 1889.) 

 I have selected this title, not because I have had particular 

 experience on the subject, or because I am an expert, but because 

 I wish to place on the records of our Society a few facts relating to 

 man-eaters which can be considered as reliable, several of them being 

 cases of man-eaters lulled by my friend, Mr. W. B. Mulock, Bombay 

 Civil Service, of our Society, now at home on furlough, and who 

 has most successfully devoted a great deal of his time to the des- 

 truction of man-eaters ; another being the case which is known as 

 the Nagpore man-eater, another the "Jaunsar" man-cater, well 

 known in the N.-W. Provinces, and lastly, the case of an alleged 

 man-eater, which I killed this year in Bansda. You must not 

 expect me to give you any thrilling account of some personal adven- 

 ture where I risked my life to rid the district of a brute long the 

 terror of the inhabitants, because I may say at once that the only 

 man-eater I have killed, exposed me to no more danger than I 

 should incur in any ordinary day's shooting after small game. In- 

 deed, it would scarcely be in accordance with the object of our 

 Society to read a paper relating to personal adventure of this 

 kind. I only wish to touch on various points which I think may 

 chiefly be of interest to our members from a Natural History point 

 of view, and in the hope that other members may be able to supply 

 us with information on this very interesting subject which they 

 can personally vouch as correct. 



Now the general impression prevailing about man-eaters is, that 

 the man-eater is an old brute, more often decrepit than otherwise, 

 perhaps lamed from some former wound, with his teeth broken and 

 his skin always mangy, unable from his infirmities to kill game, his 

 natural food, but obliged to conceal himself near a village path and 

 then to pounce on some solitary human being and devour him, 

 never attacking when there are more than two or three human beings 

 together and always displaying very great cunning, so that his 

 destruction becomes almost impossible. It is difficult to read books 

 of Indian sport without coming to that conclusion. No reliance, 

 however, can be placed, I fear, on books of sport, with one or two 



bright exceptions, one of which is Mr. Saunderson's book. Books 

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