The Tiger 225 



. . . One blow is generally sufficient to slay the largest 

 bullock or buffalo." Then he reports how a tiger, charging 

 through the skirts of a herd, " broke the backs of two of 

 these animals, . . . giving each a stroke, right and left, as 

 he passed along." Now it is certain that an Asiatic buf- 

 falo is quite as large and formidable an animal as the bison ; 

 and it may naturally be inferred from this, that most of 

 these latter fare differently from the one Leveson and 

 Burton saw fighting at the Nedeniallah Hills. 



Having thus secured a supply of beef, the tiger usually 

 withdraws and waits for night to make his meal. But if 

 he were alone with his victim, if there were no danger of 

 being winded and attacked by its companions, he would 

 act differently, and might eat at once. Inglis does not tell 

 how he became acquainted with the following details, but 

 he states that as soon as his prey is struck down, the tiger 

 "fastens on the throat of the animal he has felled, and 

 invariably tries to tear open the jugular vein." This he 

 does instinctively, because he knows intuitively that "this 

 is the most deadly spot in the whole body." But the 

 tiger's intuitions and Inglis's knowledge are both at fault 

 in this particular. "When he has got hold of his victim 

 by the throat, he lies down, holding on to the bleeding car- 

 cass, snarling and growling, and fastening and unfastening 

 his talons." In some instances, continues this writer, he 

 may drink the blood, " but in many cases I know from my 

 own observation that the blood is not drunk." After life 

 is extinct, these brutes " walk round the prostrate carcasses 

 of their victims, growling and spitting like tabby cats." If 

 they wish to eat then, the body is neatly disembowelled, 



Q 



