FELIs. 163 
measurement. Let any one try this on the next opportunity, or on the 
dead body of a cat. Care should be taken in measuring that the head 
be raised, so that the top of the skull be as much as possible in a line with 
the vertebree. A stake should be then driven in at the nose and another 
close in at the root of the tail, and the measurement taken between the 
two stakes, and not round the curves. The tail, which is an unimportant 
matter, but which in the present system of measurement is a considerable 
factor, should be measured and noted separately. I am not a believer 
in tails (or tales), and have always considered that they should be 
excluded from measurements except as an addition. I spoke of this in 
‘Seonee’ in the following terms: “If all tigers were measured 
honestly, a twelve-foot animal would never be heard of. All your big 
fellows are measured from stretched skins, and are as exaggerated as 
are the accounts of the dangers incurred in killing them—at ‘least 
in many cases. But even the true method of measuring the unskinned 
animal is faulty ; it is an apparent fact that a tail has very little to do 
with the worthiness of a creature, otherwise our bull-dogs would have 
their caudal appendages left in peace. Now every shikari knows that 
there may be a heavy tiger with a short tail and a light bodied one with 
a long tail. Yet the measurement of each would be equal, and give no 
criterion as to the size of the brute. Hlere’s this tiger of yours ; I call 
him a heavy one, twenty-eight inches round the fore-arm, and big in 
every way, yet his measurement does not sound large (it was g feet 
To inches), and had he six inches more tail he would gain immensely by 
it in reputation. The biggest panther I ever shot had a stump only six 
inches long ; and according to the usual system of measuring he would 
have read as being a very small creature indeed.” Tails do vary. Sir 
Walter Elliot was a very careful observer, and in his comparison of the 
two largest males and two largest females, killed between 1829 and 
1833, out of 70 to 80 specimens, it will be seen that the largest animal in 
each sex had the shortest tail :-— 
— Adult Male. Adult Female. 
git; Aotcoue ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. 
Hength ofhead and body... ... . Gii2 He 5 sel See 
SeeGtraM Ga a ee Cheeta Och he | Zor 3 62 
9 .gF 2.9 Sua 2ha 2S 4 
_ Campbell, in his notes to ‘The Old Forest-Ranger,’ gives the dimen- 
sions ofa tiger of 9 ft. 5 in. of which the tail was only 2 ft. 10 in. From the 
other detailed measurements it must have been an enormous tiger. The 
M 2 
