36 MY FIRST TIGER. 



position I gave her one behind the shoulder which 

 dropped her. We then re-loaded, walked up to her 

 with rifles at full cock, threw something at her to 

 see if she was quite dead — this being a necessary- 

 precaution, as they sham sometimes. In the present 

 instance she was dead. On examining her skin we 

 found she had received one or two fatal bullets. 



My best bag in tiger shooting was when with a 

 friend, Captain McRae, and another civilian ; we 

 had a tigress and three full-o^rown cubs marked 

 down. My luck was in that day ; killing the tigress 

 galloping through a bamboo jungle with one shot — 

 a bullet behind the ear — and bowling over two out 

 of the three cubs afterwards. 



In conclusion, I wish to congratulate and pay a 

 tribute of praise to Mr. Charles Thorpe, Naturalist, 

 East Croydon, for the very clever manner in which 

 he has turned out of an old mounted tiger rug 

 which had been in my family for about forty years, 

 and which had been rather roughly used, the very 

 realistic head and shoulders of the animal you see 

 in the case. The skull is the actual one belonging 

 to my first tiger — you therefore see part of the 

 animal as near as it can be made, but, of course, a 

 good deal of the brilliant marking of the head is 

 gone, and the beard has been lost. Still, however, 

 a fair remnant has been left. 



Mr. Thorpe has had a hard task to perform, has 

 succeeded admirably, and earned my gratitude and 

 thanks for preserving to me in a very pleasing 

 manner the first and very best trophy of my life. 



