162 INDIAN BIG GAME chap. 



is, of course, extremely acute, I think their eye- 

 sight is little inferior to it. 



After this I had ten days to devote to tiger, 

 one of which had been calling round camp. 

 There was a kill the day after I shot the bull. 

 The local man had tied the cow (buffaloes are 

 never tied up in this country) to the tiger's bank, 

 and I had been unable to supervise. The mistake 

 was obvious on my arrival ; however, I made 

 the best of a bad job, and selecting a high tree 

 some way from the bank, I removed all traces 

 of work and smell so far as I was able. A 

 tigress came at 8.45 p.m. And I suppose she 

 wished to show that I had underrated her power 

 of scent, for she started sniffing a good hundred 

 yards off, as if she were being poisoned by a real 

 bad smell. She continued sniffing until she was 

 under my tree, then darted to the undergrowth 

 of the opposite bank, and amused herself for the 

 next two hours in making short rushes, breaking 

 boughs, and never coming out. Then she went 

 off. Next morning's tracks confirmed her be- 

 haviour, as incomprehensible as that of all her 

 charming sex. 



We then moved on twelve miles to where a 

 man-eating tigress and cub were giving trouble. 

 This pair were said to have killed forty-five 

 people in the last six months. This figure was 

 probably an exaggeration, but undoubtedly many 

 lives had been lost; and the postal runners had 

 been intercepted for days together. 



We tied up at once and had a few quiet 

 days, during which two women were killed. One 

 body was never found, and the other had been 



