JfAMMAL/A. 471 



tlie olei)]iaut was weakly and sick, as elephants iu lioalth do not Ho down, but sleep 

 standing. A case ma)- here be quoted illustrating the risk of going near a recent 

 ' kill.' A friend of mine, Sir. Jlontgomcr)-, when surveying iu Arakan, was surprised 

 one morning to find a fine dish of poik chops on liis breakfast table. On inquiiy he 

 found that his people had found a pig just killed by a tiger near the village, and 

 had appropriated the moat to their own use. After breakfast my friend strolled 

 out to see the spot, a Burnian leading the way, and several men bringing u]) the rear 

 of the party. They had barely reached the spot, when the exasperated and hungry 

 tiger, with a terrible roar, thing himself into their midst. The Eurman, who was 

 leading, was throwu dowu, and died in a few hours of his injuries, whilst my friend 

 had his leg torn open from the hip to the knee, seemingly by the hind claws of the 

 tiger, and was for weeks laid up and incapable of walking. The tiger, satisfied 

 with the vengeance he had inflicted, disappeared, and was not seen again. Alluding 

 to the ravages of tigers in India, Dr. Mason remarks: "The difference however, 

 it is believed, is not in the tigers, but in the men. Whenever a man-eating tiger 

 turns up among the Karens, they set traps, and nooses, and pitfalls, and spring spears, 

 and give him no rest until he is caught one way or other. Then his cajttors take 

 his body, slung on bamboos, to exhibit him in all the surrounding villages, and 

 every village contributes whatever they choose, to remunerate the party wliich has 

 delivered them from so dangerous a neighbour, which in the aggregate often amounts 

 to a handsome sum, and this keeps up the stimulus to hunt down such nuisances 

 ■whenever they appear. When natives are travelling in small parties, they often 

 extemporize a bamboo staging among the branches of a tree, on which to spend 

 the night, but they are no security from the attacks of tigers. 1 have heard of 

 a Karen being carried off whilst asleep among the upper branches of a tree by 

 a tiger which had stealthily crawled up the tnmk. I was formerly incredulous 

 of the native reports of tigers running up trees, but quite recently the thing 

 occurred in tho pn-sence of a party of Europeans." Unfortunately the quotation 

 on which Dr. Mason relies gives neither names nor dates, so that it is possible that 

 leopards, not tigers, were the animals ; neither is it certain that the witnesses were 

 sportsmen, who are not iu the habit of confounding the two animals. I believe 

 the consensus of opinion among sportsmen is that tigers do not ascend trees. On the 

 Arakan Coast, where tigers are numerous, I have often noticed what seemed a most 

 inadequate protection from these animals, but which I was assured was really not 

 so. A number of strips of bamboo, some three feet long, stuck into tho ground, 

 each bent into a semicircle, overlapped by the adjoining ones, much as a iiower pot 

 is surrounded in an English garden. A puppy could jump over the circle thus 

 formed, but I was assured no tiger would attempt to do so. I can only suppose 

 that the tigers suspect the arrangement to be connected with some spring spear, or 

 other contrivance, which their experience has led them to dread. 



After mentioning several cases of both Karens and Burmans being killed by 

 tigers, Dr. Mason adds, "These few facts, which might easily be multiplied, have 

 been mentioned because the opinion has gone abroad that Burmese tigers are not 

 dangerous. Dr. Heifer wrote, ' They are of quite a different nature from those in 

 Bengal, and probably more afraid of men, than men of them. Accidents very seldom 

 happen to natives who penetrate daily into untrodden jungle, sometimes quite alone.' 

 8uch representations may prove fatal to strangers and persons new in the country, as 

 they already have in the case of Dr. Woodford, who lost his life by a tiger on the 

 Ataran a few years ago, wholly owing to his want of suitable precaution in going 

 away from the boat near evening to shoot a peacock." The circumstances of this 

 case help to explain the immunity with which people traverse the haunts of these 

 animals. The tiger is nocturnal iu his habits, and having been on the prowl all night, 

 and probably fully satisfied his appetite, is during the day very indisjiosed to move, 

 or to interfere with either man or beast passing near his lair. Towards sunset, how- 

 ever, the case is different, and the risk vastly increased, but men do not usually movo 

 about the jungles during the night. Tigers in Burma varj- greatly in size, and the 

 Burmans recognize a large and a small race. Tiie large race is regarded as inoffensive 

 to man as a rule, but the small tiger is much more dreaded. 



