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other, so to speak, we mutually managed to decrease the distance 

 between us. It was almost in vain however for the cunning brute 

 kept his rhododendron stump so pertinaciously before him, that 

 although I had a perfect view of his hind-quarters beyond it and 

 he was facing me, I could not, although in a most favorable 

 position to aim, get a shot at his chest. I think he would have 

 come on beyond it had not one of my men tried to crawl after me ; 

 this caused him to jump up : as he turned I broke his hind leg 

 but although this stopped him so much that I managed to get up 

 to him again and have two shots, one of them a very bad miss ; he 

 still lives to prey on the Todah buffaloes. I would rather however 

 have seen what I did then and have missed him altogether than 

 have killed him without such a rare opportunity of watching a 

 tiger. 



I beseech that I may not be considered egotistical for telling this 

 long story. There was nothing in its incidents which a nursery 

 maid with an infant in her arms might, if she could have got to 

 the spot, not have looked calmly on at, for, when we were thus 

 crawling towards each other, to get much nearer me he would 

 have had to go down one bare hill-side and up another ; a feat 

 which no wild animal would attempt, not to mention that I had 

 with me and my men three breech-loaders, which, even if I had 

 missed him every time I pulled the trigger, would have made 

 more noise tkan the nerves of the stoutest tiger would have been 

 equal to. 



Another cat-like habit of tigers is not often mentioned by 

 sportsmen, although most of us must be well acquainted with the 

 marks produced by it : I mean scratching or scoring trunks of 

 trees with their claws, much as an ill-disposed cat sometimes does 

 furniture. At one time I fancied that the animals merely did this 

 by rearing against the trunk and certainly never suspected that 

 they are in the habit of returning to the same tree for this 

 purpose : I am now sure however that the latter is the case and 

 am convinced that they not only rear, but climb, or rather run up 

 the tree until they get a good hold for their claws near some fork 

 or bough ; why I am not prepared to say. A few months ago, 

 while shooting on the Neilgherries with a friend, often quoted in 



