12 



CHRISTMAS NUMBER AND ALMANAC 



stones as he went. Soon were heard two shots, and then a 

 continued hacking, and lots of those 'funny words' that 

 Ingoldsby says sailors use. Then the sailor came out ; his 

 shirt was torn from him, his hack was deeply fm-rowed with 

 claw marks, and he had evidently been bitten tlu-ough the 

 shoulder. ' Come down, blackie, I have killed the tiger.' 

 The blackie looked down, and, seeing the sailor streaming 

 mth blood, grinned, and said — ' Don't look like it.' ' But 

 I have, I tell you.' ' No one will Ijelieve it without you 

 bring his head.' ' True,' said the sailor ; — ' something to 

 learn from a nigger.' He went in and retunied, bringing 

 the head. 'Any drink to be had?' 'Lots, now you have 

 killed tlie tiger.' And they went to a drink house. Tlie 

 sailor pom-ed quantities down his back into the wounds, and 

 still more down his throat ; when, overcome with fatigue and 

 rather faint, he leaned his head on a table and went to sleep. 

 The black rolled the head in pait of his turlian, and went to 

 the village, where the head man of the country sat daily to 

 administer justice ; or, as some of us know who have the 

 privilege of serving on juries, ' on behalf of our Sovereign 

 lady the Queen, to do and examine such things as shall then 

 and' there be brought before you.' Among other duties lie 

 was to pay the reward to any one who killed the man-eater. 

 ' Well ! ' said he, as the black entered, carrying a largo 

 bloody bundle ; ' well ! ' The black salaamed. ' I have killed 

 the tiger.' The head man looked well at him ; he did 

 not look like one to undertake such a feat, much less to 

 accomplish it. ' Wh.it proof?' said the Governor. 'I have 

 his head.' The Governor sat on a small raised platform, 

 approached by three or four steps. ' Come here,' said he to 

 the claimant. ' Do you see my beard ? ' ' Yes.' ' Do 

 you see that long white hair ? ' ' Yes.' ' Pull it out,' 

 shouted the head man. The blackie approached timidly, and 

 was about to touch it delieatcly with the tips of liis fingers, 

 when the Go\ernor snapped at him with his mouth. ' Oh ! ' 

 screamed the black, and jumped off the ]ilatform. ' Lock 

 that man up,' said the chief, ' he did not kill the tiger.' 



" Some time afterwai'ds the sailor came, ' Justice,' he said, 

 'I killed the ra.an-eator, and a black fellow stole his head.' 

 The chief put him to the same ordeal as the lilack. When 

 the sailor was t(jld to pull out the white hair, he laid hold of a 

 handful, and \vhcn the head man snaj^ped at him, he doubled 

 his fist and knocked him down. As his attendant picked the 

 great m.an uj), he said, 'Pay that man, he killed the tiger.' " 



A trifle will sometimes save a life, or throw a party into 

 consternation, and these trifles may be the work of the smallest 

 and most des])ised reptiles. During the most sanguinary 

 period of the French Eevolutiou a nobleman was flying from 

 his pursuers. He \vas hard pressed ; he entered a house, and 

 crept into an oven. His pursuers entered almost with him. 

 " He must have gone into the oven," said one. "Impossible," 

 said another ; " here is a cobweb across the mouth of it." In 

 the instant a spider had spun his web at the month of the 

 oven. A friend of our's, a great observer of natural history, 



wished to solve a doubt. He had been told that 

 when birds of prey have young only one parent 

 feeds. He lived in the north of Scotland, and 

 had an eagle's nest in some rocks on his estate. 

 He waited, and shot the female bird. He watched 

 narrowly ; the male was constantly backwards 

 and forwards with food. The young were con- 

 stantly crying for two days. The parent still 

 brought food, but there was no sound from the 

 nest. He got up to it and found the young ones 

 dead, surrounded by lambs, hares, rabbits, and 

 everything eatable. The male brought the food, 

 but did not feed. Men become so interested in 

 the pursuit, that when they are astride their 

 hobby they are apt to forget the '^ convenances" 

 of society. An old enthusiast was the lion of a 

 conversazione, held at the house of a lady, the 

 wife of a millionaire. The entertainers had 

 little sympathy with talent or intellect. The 

 master was proud of his wealth ; the mistress, of 

 ^ \ the faultless condition of her house. The one 



^ could lend them a trifle ; the other could invite 



them, and, as she said, '' trot them out." Our en- 

 thusiast was a celebrity — and deservedly so. The 

 hostess brought bun into the room, and he was soon the 

 centre of a circle, where natural history, and the instinct of 

 birds as compared with the reason of man, formed the subject. 

 He enlarged on it, and spoke highly of the quality of their 

 instinct. He looked round for an illustration. "Take, for 

 instance," he said, " that cobweb in the corner of the ceihng. 

 The spider knows it is easier to build fi'om side to side — ." 

 Before he had got as far as this his circle was broken, the 

 hostess being the first to disappear. 



- Another, and perhaps a more genial phase of our subject, 

 is that which comes home to most of us — to many to whom 

 lions, tigers, and that class are known only from reading, or 

 in menageries. We speak of the animals that are about our 

 homes. Migratory birds return year after year to the same 

 spot — to their home. Many Londoners, or transplanted 

 countrymen, who look for the first swallow, will recollect 

 those that used to come to the corner of Bennett and Arling- 

 ton Streets, and built in the corners of some blank windows. 

 We watched them for years, and we there saw that of which 

 we had often read — their fashion of walling up or entombing 

 alive any pertinacious intruder into the nest. It was very 

 early in the morning, when no one was about. There was a 

 great crying, and we saw a sparrow doing all in his power to 

 enter the nest to which the swallows had just returned ; he 

 seemed the stronger and obtained admission. The beaten 

 swallow clung to the edge of the entrance with his feet, 

 spread his wings to prevent egress, called for assistance, 

 which was speedily at hand, when all seeming to understand 

 the ease came ready for work, and in a few minutes the 

 intruder was securely built into a living tomb. We have 

 known a robin build year after year in a shed used as a knife 

 house : a fly-catcher in the bend of a branch that was 

 trained along the top of a low dining-room window. 



Those who are fond of shooting, or of watching the habits 

 of our field birds, can tell us of the strong home feeling of 

 partridges ; how they cling to the field in which they were 

 bred ; how it is their feeding ground ; and how certainly 

 they may be found there morning and evening, so long as 

 even a headland remains unploughed. There is the marvel- 

 lous instinct of the pigeon, which has puzzled all to account 

 for. Taken in a close box from Hertfordshire to Antwerp, 

 and released on its arrival, it returns in so short period of 

 time, as not only to necessitate the greatest possible speed, 

 but to preclude any possibility of doubt in the bird's mind as 

 to the route to be followed. We ourselves, when boys, had 

 two young white pigeons given to us. They could scarcely 

 feed, and were reared in a rabbit-hutch. Thei/ were never 

 at Ubcrti/, When some months old they were put in a 

 bag, which was placed in a dog-cart, and they were taken 

 thirty-one miles into the country ; after dark they were 

 placed in a pigeon-house. One of them was back in 

 London before eleven the next morning, the other the fol- 

 lowing day. 



Take the way of wild fowl steering through the air for 

 thousands of miles. Air and water, trackless both, yet both 



