1 68 



THE CAT TRIBE. 



"The man-eater is often an old tiger (more fre- 

 quently a tigress), or an animal that, through having 

 been wounded or otherwise hurt, has been unable 

 to procure its usual food, and takes to this means 

 of subsistence. . . The man-eater is as cowardly 

 as it is cunning, fleeing before an armed man, be- 

 tween whom and a possible victim it discriminates 

 with wonderful sagacity. The slightest sound of 

 any one in pursuit of it, even the whisper of a 

 single sportsman with one or two trackers in its 

 haunts, starts it at once; it will then probably 

 travel for miles, though even whilst fleeing it may 

 pounce upon some unwary victim, as I have seen 

 an ordinary tiger seize a bullock when itself the 

 object of hot pursuit. This combination of cow- 

 ardice and audacity constitutes the difficulty there 

 always is in bringing a man-eater to bag." Thirteen 

 Years among the Wild Beasts of India. 



Tiger-hunting is much more dangerous 

 than lion-hunting, because the tiger is much 

 wilier than the lion, and knows so well how 

 to hide itself that it almost always falls upon 

 the hunter unexpectedly. In India and 

 China large hunting-parties used to be or- 

 ganized on a scale worthy of a military ex- 

 pedition. Thousands of armed men and 

 hundreds of elephants were assembled to- 

 gether, the lairs and hiding-places of the 

 savage beast were surrounded, and it was 

 endeavoured to inclose him within a ring of 

 lances. This ring was indeed often enough 

 broken through, not without dead and wounded 

 being left behind. Now-a-days the hunt is 

 organized on a more modest scale, and yet it 

 leads to better results. All possible means, 

 even torches and rockets, are employed to 

 scare the tiger from his lair. The animal is 

 caught in nets, in traps, in pitfalls covered 

 with bushes. Good marksmen accompanied 

 by dogs seek him out under the direction of 

 experienced guides, and try to kill him with 

 a rifle- ball. This kind of sport is, indeed, a 

 very favourite one in India, but extremely 

 dangerous. Many an English officer has 

 thereby been maimed for life, for the wounds 

 made by the claws and teeth of a tiger are 

 always very severe. For the extermination 



of such an enemy of human kind all means 

 are good, but, notwithstanding the high pre- 

 miums which the Indian government and 

 the native rulers pay to the successful hun- 

 ter, the extirpation of the tiger is a slow 

 process. 



If we would say anything of the behaviour 

 of the tiger in captivity we should merely 

 repeat in a great measure what has been said 

 about the lion. It is worth mentioning, how- 

 ever, that even the tiger born in a menagerie 

 or a zoological garden, and kept tame from 

 birth, is always more to be dreaded than the 

 lion. The instances of a return to the savage 

 condition are more frequent in the case of the 

 tiger. The tiger, however, agrees with the 

 lion in being easily propagated in captivity. 

 It has even been found possible to produce 

 hybrids between a lion and a tigress. 



Africa, Asia, and the Sunda Islands harbour 

 large spotted felines, which have been desig- 

 nated by the names of Leopards and Panthers. 

 Are they species? Are they varieties? The 

 question still remains unanswered. Certain 

 it is that the panther of Java (Felis varicgata] 

 has a smaller head, longer neck and tail, 

 more slender body, and more simple and 

 more numerous spots than the rest of his 

 kindred; but it is equally certain that it 

 occurs in a quite black variety, whose spots 

 can only be discerned in sunlight, and which 

 was considered to be a separate species until 

 black and spotted young ones were found on 

 one occasion to be born together of the same 

 mother. 



Be this as it may, it must at least be 

 acknowledged that the African Panther (Felis 

 Leopardus], to which some would restrict the 

 name of leopard, and the Asiatic Panther 

 (F. Panthera) are extremely like one another, 

 and that the name panther is the only one in 

 use in Algeria. The general colour of these 

 two felines is a light yellow ochre, inclining on 

 the back to brown, on the under-side to white, 

 while the spots are black. In both species 

 two different kinds of spots are scattered 



