160 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 



by a stroke is erroneous. I have never seen any- 

 thing to support this belief nor is it held by natives. 

 I have seen several cattle severely lacerated which 

 had escaped from tigers, where had a heavy blow 

 accompanied the strokes of the paws, bones must 

 have been broken. 



There is no foundation for the belief in tigers 

 sucking the blood of their victims; the jugular vein 

 is seldom if ever injured; it is by the fracturing of 

 the vertibrae, not by blood-letting, that the tiger's 

 prey is deprived of life. In eating, the tiger invar- 

 iably commences at the hindquarters and the exact 

 spot where the first mouthful will be taken can be 

 told with certainty. 



The flesh of one or both thighs, and sometimes 

 the flanks, or about fifty or sixty pounds of meat 

 is eaten the first night. 



Tigers seldom lie up far from their kill if the 

 cover be thick and quiet ; they eat whenever inclined 

 either by day or night till the carcass is finished; 

 this is usually on the third day; but of course, this 

 depends upon the size of the animal killed. After 

 or during a meal the tiger drinks largely, often 

 walking belly deep into the water. 



Tigers' power of enduring hunger and thirst is 

 very great. Once we surrounded with nets a tiger, 

 tigress and a leopard. We shot the leopard the 

 first day, but the enclosed thicket was so dense that 

 we could not get the tigers to show, but on the fifth 

 day we wounded them both. After this, as nothing 



