FEL is. 169 
Street, showed me a beautiful skin with deep soft hair, abundantly 
striped on a rich burnt sienna ground, admirably relieved by the pure 
white of the lower parts. That light-coloured specimens are found is 
true, but I doubt whether they are more common than the others. Of 
the varieties in India it is more difficult to speak. Most sportsmen 
recognise two (some three)—the stout thick-set tiger of hilly country, 
and the long-bodied lankier one of the grass jungles in the plains. Such 
a division is in consonance with the ordinary laws of nature, which we 
also see carried out in the thick-set muscular forms of the human 
species in mountain tracts. 
Some writers, however, go further, and attempt subdivisions more or 
less doubtful. I knew the late Captain J. Forsyth most intimately for 
years. We were in the same house for some time. I took an interest 
in his writings, and helped to illustrate his last work, and I can bear 
testimony to the general accuracy of his observations and the value of 
his book on the Highlands of Central India; but in some things he 
formed erroneous ideas, and his three divisions, based on the habits of 
the tiger, is, I think, open to objection, as tending to create an idea of at 
least two distinct varieties. 
Native shikaris, he says, recognise two kinds—-the Zodhia Bagh and 
the Oontia Bagh (which last I may remind my readers is one of the names 
of the lion). ‘The former is the game-killing tiger, retired in his habits, 
living chiefly among the hills, retreating readily from man. “He is a 
light-made beast, very active and enduring, and from this, as well 
as his shyness, generally difficult to bring to bag.” 
I grant his shyness and comparative harmlessness (I once met one 
almost face to face)—and the nature of the ground he inhabits increases 
the difficulty in securing him—but I do not think he physically differs 
from his brother in the cattle districts. Mr. Sanderson says one of the 
largest tigers he had killed was a pure game-killer. 
“ The cattle-lifter again,” says Forsyth, “is usually an older and heavier 
animal (called Oontia Bagh, from his faintly striped coat, resembling 
the colour of a camel), very fleshy and indisposed to severe exertion.” 
His third division is the man-eater. However, this is merely a 
classification on the habits of the same animal. ~ I think most Central 
India sportsmen will agree with me when I say that many a young 
tiger is a cattle-eater, with a rich coloured hide, although it often 
happens that an old tiger of the first division, when he finds his powers 
for game failing by reason of age or increased bulk, transfers himself 
from the borders of the forest to the vicinity of grazing lands and 
villages, and he ultimately may come into the third division by becoming 
a man-eater. »So that the Zodfia becomes the Oontia (for very old 
tigers become lighter in colour), and may end by being an Adam-khor, 
or man-eater. ‘Pigers roam a great deal at times, and if in their 
