270 THE MAN-EATER. 



THE GAME-KILLER. 



The game-ldUer confines himself entirely to thick forests, chiefly in 

 hill-tracts, where he keeps to the feeding-grounds and hot-weather resorts 

 of game ; and though the sportsman has little cause to bless him, the would- 

 be protectors of the ryots should rather give him their countenance than 

 thirst for his blood, as he is most beneficial in keeping down the herds of 

 deer and pig that would otherwise destroy much crop. The game-killer 

 shuns the haunts of man, and wanders much in the cool forests at all hours. 

 On one occasion in the Kakenkote" jungles I was following a deer-run one 

 gloomy evening after a wet afternoon, when a slight movement behind 

 attracted my attention, and I turned just in time to see some animal dis- 

 appear silently into the jungle. I had not time for a shot. On examina- 

 tion we found a tiger's pugs in the moist earth where, crouched behind a 

 bamboo-clump, he had been patiently watching for deer, and had cunningly 

 allowed the tracker and myself to pass within a few yards of him before 

 attempting a retreat. 



Captain Forsyth states that the game-killer is usually a lighter and 

 more active beast than the cattle-killer. This is, doubtless, the rule, as he 

 has to travel farther for his food — but there are exceptions. One of the 

 largest tigers I have killed was a pure game-killer. I shot him upon the 

 carcass of a young elephant he had seized and partially eaten in the Ckitta- 

 gong hills, as described in Chapter XIII. I recently saw the carcass of a 

 cow-bison killed and partly eaten by a tiger in the Billiga-rungun hills. 

 This was the work of a powerful tiger, though a game-killer, as the bison 

 was a full-grown animal, and a terrible struggle had ensued upon its 

 seizure. 



THE MAN-EATER. 



This truly terrible scourge to the timid and unarmed inhabitants of 

 an Indian village is now happily becoming very rare ; man-eaters of a bad 

 type are seldom heard of, or if heard of, rarely survive long. Before there 

 were so many European sportsmen as there now are in the country a man- 

 eater frequently caused the temporary abandonment of whole tracts ; and the 

 sites of small hamlets abandoned by the terrified inhabitants, and which 

 have never been reoccupied, are not uncommonly met with by the sports- 

 man in the jungles. The terror inspired by a man-eater throughout the dis- 

 trict ranged by him is extreme. The helpless people are defenceless against 



