290 THREE TIGERS POISONED. 



put nine grains into a bullock, after looking for the tiger that bad killed it 

 during the day. We had disturbed him, so he did not return that night. 

 Next morning the bullock had swelled to an enormous size and the wound 

 was dripping a gelatinous matter. I put a couple of men to watch during 

 the day to keep off the vultures, and by evening fully a quart of fluid had 

 dripped and coagulated below. The tiger returned at night and ate half 

 the bullock, and finished it the next night, so he could not have felt the 

 poison ; and I believe, from this and similar experiments, that strychnine is 

 worked off from dead flesh in a few hours. 



I subsequently hit upon a fatal method of applying poison. I do not 

 intend to divulge the secret, as district officers with strongly- developed utili- 

 tarian views would be enabled to poison off all the tigers in their ranges by 

 this means, which, judging from the operations in a single district in Madras, 

 some who do not pause to consider the useful features of the tiger's presence 

 might not hesitate to do. The success I attained in my first, and I hope 

 last, experiment, as far as tigers are concerned, was painfully complete. 

 Two old bullocks that were yoked together were killed by a tiger close to my 

 camp. The original slayer was joined at dinner by two tigresses, and the 

 three ate the whole of one bullock, leaving the other untouched. In the 

 morning I had the remaining carcass guarded from the vultures, and late 

 in the afternoon I applied the poison in the way I had devised. Next 

 morning we found the three tigers had dragged the bullock into some rocks 

 and bushes about a hundred and fifty yards distant, with bare country all 

 round, and no water in the rocks. Not knowing that they were dead, 1 

 sent to Captain C. of the Revenue Survey, who was in camp at a village 

 four miles distant, and with another friend, who was staying with me, set 

 out with five elephants about 1 1 a.m. We posted ourselves in trees across 

 the line we expected the tigers to take, and sent the elephants with the 

 trackers on them to beat them out of the rocks. 



From my tree I could see the elephants clambering about the rocks, 

 and the men keeping a sharp look-out ; presently I heard a shout that one 

 tiger was dead, and soon afterwards another. The mahout of an elephant 

 that was in advance now found the third. Shrieks of laughter and much 

 merriment followed an inspection of the " bodies," and a tracker came run- 

 ning for us. I confess I had never expected such slaughter. I was not 

 certain, having only seen tigers affected before, that my new plan would 

 succeed, and I felt like a murderer when I viewed the unfortunate victims. 

 My men took a very different and exceedingly cheerful view of the case, 

 exclaiming delightedly, " Oh, this is good ! here have our master and we 

 been risking our throats " (clutching their necks with appropriate gesture/and 



