SOJJE NATURE NOTES. 405 



:i confirmed man-eater, hiul his career not been put a stop to soon 

 ut'ter he began killing human beings. 



In the recoriled instances of man-eating tigers and leopards we 

 (1(1 not by any means find that they are generally animals in their 

 declining years. It seems more probable that beasts of prey take to 

 man-eating in the first instance more by accident than from any 

 inability to kill other animals. They can kill domesticated cattle 

 with equal facility, although decrepit animals might find a difficulty 

 ill killincr aame. Probablv thev in manv instances begin man-eating 

 1)V killing a herdsman or wood cutter, or other wanderer in the 

 jungle, with no initial intention of devouring the prey ; and so 

 they acquire a taste for human flesh. Mr. Selous mentions the 

 bellowing of buffaloes being mauled to death by lions ; I have heard 

 similar bellowing of an Indian domesticated buffalo being mauled to 

 death by a brace of tigers which I shot next day. The popular idea 

 of lions roaring when in search of prey has always struck me as 

 being absurd, for it is not probable that the prey would await the 

 approach of the roaring lion. Mr. Selous tells us that they hunt in 

 silence, and on one occasion notes that lions " began to roar loudly, a 

 jirettv good sign that they had already dined and were not hunting. " 

 However, the roaring of lions is apparently a very common sound, 

 and tigers seem to be much more silent animals, for I have very 

 seldom heard them utter a sound, except when molested. 



Lions and tigers appear to resemble each other m the method of 

 killing their prey, by seizing it either by the throat or the back of the 

 neck, and, in the case of large animals, by breaking the neck. 



Mr. Selous mentions, as something very unusual, the killing of an 

 elephant by lions. These beasts apparently sometimes hunt in large 

 packs, so are doubtless able to tackle with facility very large animals. 

 One reads of 15 to 20 lions together ; personally I have never seen 

 more than three tigers, a tigress and two large cubs, in one party, 

 tint have heard of five. Saunderson mentions a tiger killing an ele- 

 ]diant, and a similar occurrence is recorded in the Jsian of ir)th May 

 1*J00. It is related that one night on the Hanyani river a lioness 

 broke into a piggery and killed nearly a hundred pigs. I have known 

 a tiger kill five cows out of a herd, one after the other. Bears are some- 

 times no less destructive. In May 1881) 1 was encamped near Tilel 

 on the Kishenganga in Kashmir wheti a brown bear killed ten sheep 



