XIII THE TIGER AND THE LEOPARD 395 
it will also voluntarily enter the water, and can swim consider- 
able rivers. 
Mr. H. N. Ridley! observes that Tigers “habitually swim 
over to Singapore across the Johore Strait, usualiy by way of the 
intermediate islands of Pulau Ubin and Pulau Tekong. They 
make the passage at night, landing in the early morning. As so 
much of the coast is mangrove swamp, and the animals do not 
risk going through the mud, they are only able to cross where 
the shores are sandy, and thus they have regular starting- and 
landing-places.” 
The Tiger is mainly nocturnal, but begins its depredations 
towards five o'clock in the afternoon, before which it remains 
sleeping in shady thickets. If the weather is rainy and windy 
it becomes restless and wanders about earlier. Under the provo- 
cation of extreme hunger it will hunt during the daytime. 
Hunger, too, naturally produces extreme boldness. Mr. Ridley 
relates a story of four Tigers who walked up the steps of a house 
in search of the master of the house or his dog, and broke into 
it, the inhabitants retiring in their favour. The Malays have 
superstitions about Tigers, which are precisely paralleled by the 
man-and-wolf stories of Europe. “Certain people are supposed 
to have the power of turning into tigers for a short time, and 
resuming their human form at pleasure. The transformation 
commences tail first, and the human tiger is so completely 
changed that not only has it all the actions and appearance of 
the tiger, but on resuming its human form it is quite unconscious 
of what it has been doing in the tiger state.” Mr. Ridley dis- 
putes the common stories as to man-eaters. If a Tiger has once 
tasted human flesh it does not always confine itself afterwards to 
that article of diet, nor is it only aged and comparatively tooth- 
less animals which hunt man. That they do take a large toll of 
coolies is an undoubted fact, and many are the artifices to prevent 
the rest from knowing the fate of one of their fellow-workmen, or 
of becoming acquainted with the presence in the neighbourhood 
of one of the dreaded beasts. 
The Leopard or Panther, /. pardus, is, like the Lion, African 
and Asiatic in range. The animal is spotted with rosettes of 
black spots surrounding a central field of the tawny colour of the 
body generally. Some of the spots are solid and black. “ The 
1 Natural Science, vi. 1895, p. 89. 
