5 8 Lloyd's natural history. 



means of escape offers from real or imaginary danger, they 

 have occasionally been known to do so. They have also been 

 seen to clamber up or even spring to a certain height, where 

 they have seen a man, and whence they thought the shot came, 

 and pull him down. I have heard of authentic instances 

 where this happened. Nor are they wont to spring to any 

 great height from the ground ; though an instance occurred 

 recently, reported by an eye-witness, where a Tiger pulled a 

 native, in one spring, out of a tree at a height of eighteen feet 

 from the ground. The Tiger's usual attack is a rush accom- 

 panied by a series of short deep growls or roa'rs, in which he 

 evidently thinks he will do much by intimidation. When he 

 charges home, he rises on the hind-feet, seizes with the teeth 

 and claws, endeavouring, and often succeeding, in pulling down 

 the object seized. Tigers do occasionally leave the ground 

 with a spring, clear a fence or ditch, or even alight on the 

 Elephant's head, his pad, or hindquarters ; but this probably 

 happens in the case of Tigresses or young and active malts. 

 The heavy old Tiger seldom, if ever, is so energetic in spring- 

 ing up heights ; though he will take a good broad ditch or wall 

 in a bound." 



As an instance of the enormous muscular power of the Tiger, 

 the same writer goes on to say that on one occasion one of 

 these animals sprang from an elevation at a single bound 

 among a herd of cattle, striking down simultaneously on each 

 side a Cow with his fore-paws. Both Cows were disabled, but 

 whereas the Tiger proceeded to kill and devour the one, the 

 other was left lying with her back broken. 



In many districts in India, Tigers were (and in some in- 

 stances still are) extraordinarily numerous and audacious, and 

 the following account by an anonymous author, taken, with 

 some verbal alteration, from the Asian newspaper of August 

 3rd, 1894, of their habits and vagaries in the Cherrapunji 



