2G 



miles, to try to recover the body. Except that we had to make 

 our way in Indian file through thick thorny bushes under which 

 some times we had to creep on hands and knees, the trail, marked 

 with fragments of clothes, the cap, keys, purse, blood and hair, of 

 the victim, was an easy one. The body was very little mangled, 

 so it was determined to wait for the return of the tiger, and in the 

 mean time to put up a small platform in the only tree near. I had 

 work in camp, therefore left my two comrades who took breakfast 

 and shelter from the sun (it was then near mid-day) under a bush 

 close to, but not within sight of, the body, which was not a pleasant 

 spectacle during their meal. Their gun-carriers were about 

 the spot, collecting the rough materials at hand for the platform : 

 while all were thus employed, the tiger carried off the body from 

 their midst in open day and through not very thick brushwood 

 without being observed by any one. I returned to them soon after, 

 as they were then trying to follow the trail ; this time without 

 success, for the body had now neither blood nor rags to mark the 

 path, and the ground was hard. It is difficult to conceive how the 

 beast could thus have outwitted them, but so it was. 



I still think from the trail, as we had first had it, that this was 

 a very small tiger, or more probably, tigress. I have been assured 

 $iat the animal was an immense male which was killed near the 

 spot some months afterwards by a native, but I can hardly imagine 

 that I could have been so mistaken in the size of the foot-print. 



Since writing the above I have with reference to Mr. Walter 

 Elliot's remark as quoted by Jerdon at page 94, that " The Bheels in 

 " Kandeish say that in the monsoon, when food is scarce, the tiger 

 feeds on frogs" been told by a well known sportsman, that he has 

 been assured by these people, that they have often seen tigers catch- 

 ing frogs, by hooking them out of shallow pools with their paws. The 

 mode of marking down tigers, followed by these native hunters gives 

 them, he remarked, peculiar facilities for acquiring trustworthy infor- 

 mation regarding the habits of these animals. On a tiger being 

 tracked into, or known to be in a certain cover, a few men place 

 themselves in a circle on trees or rocks, so as to command the direc- 

 tions, it is probable, he will take towards his usual haunts. As the 

 creature in stealing through the cover comes near the first of these 



