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certainly one animal cannot more than the other be charged with 

 poltroonery. 



But if any doubt as to the courage of the tiger be entertained, 

 Father Tachard'a account of a combat between that beast and two 

 elephants at Siam will be sufficient proof. He relates that a lofty 

 bamboo palisade was erected, occupying an area of about 100 feet 

 square. Into this inclosure two elephants were introduced with their 

 heads and trunks shielded by a kind of mask. A large tiger was now 

 brought from its den, and held with cords till one of the elephants 

 approached and inflicted two or three blows on its back with his 

 trunk, so heavily laid on that it fell stunned, as if dead. Then they 

 loosed the tiger. No sooner did he recover than he sprang with a 

 dreadful roar at the elephant's trunk stretched out in act to strike 

 him ; but the wary elephant drew up his trunk, and receiving the 

 tiger on his tusks, hurled him into the air. This checked the fury of 

 the tiger, as it well might, and he gave up the contest with the 

 elephant; but he ran several times round the palisade, frequently 

 springing at the spectators. Afterwards three elephants were set 

 upon him, and they in turn dealt him such heavy blows that he again 

 lay senseless, and would have been killed, if the combat, as it is most 

 incorrectly called, had not been stopped. Nothing could be more 

 unfair towards the tiger than the whole of this proceeding ; and we 

 will venture to say that no quadruped except a British bull-dog could 

 have shown more 'pluck,' to use a common but expressive term, than 

 this shamefully treated beast. 



The older authors generally state that after the tiger has secured 

 ita prey it plunges its head into the body of the animal up to its very 

 eyes, as if to satiate itself with blood till the corpse is exhausted, 

 before it tears it to pieces. The best modern accounts tend to prove 

 that the tiger is not more bloodthirsty and has no more blood-sucking 

 propensities than the other great Cats ; and that this blood-driuking 

 habit is grossly exaggerated. 



The tigress brings forth three or four, or four or five cubs at a 

 time ; and she is a very fond mother, braving every danger for them, 

 and furiously attacking man and beast in their defence. The ancients 

 knew thin well. See Martial (lib. iii Epig. 44) : 



" Non tigrii catulis citata raptis," &c. ; 

 and Juvenal (' Sat." vi.) : 



" Tune gravis ilia viro, tune orba tig-ride pejor : " 



and though it is on record that a tigress in modern times devoured 

 her cub, one should remember that this unnatural act was done in 

 captivity, and that rabbits, sows, and cats, have done the same. But 

 that in a state of nature the maternal feeling is very strong in the 

 tigress, there can be no doubt. Captain Williamson, for example, 

 relates that two tiger-cubs were brought to him when he was stationed 

 in an Indian district. The country-people had found four in the 

 absence of the tigress. The two brought to the captain were put in a 

 stable, where they made a loud noise for several nights. The bereaved 

 mother arrived at last, replying to their cries with fearful bowlings, 

 and the cuba were let loose under the apprehension that the infuriated 

 tigress might break in. In the morning it waa found that she had 

 carried them away. 



Various devices have been put in requisition to take or annihilate 

 this destructive quadruped, and we shall mention one or two of them 

 before we advert to the chase of the animal upon a grander scale. 

 Ten rupees were formerly offered by the East India Company for 

 every tiger destroyed within the provinces where their power 

 and influence extended : a small reward, but sufficient, conjointly 

 with the depredations of the animal, to stimulate the poorer classes 

 to destroy it. 



A kind of spring-bow was formerly laid in its way, and discharged 

 a poisoned arrow, generally with fatal effect, when the animal came 

 in contact with a cord stretched across its path ; and this method is 

 said to be still in use in some places. Again, a heavy beam was 

 suspended over the way traversed by the tiger, which fell and 

 crushed him on his disengaging a cord which let the beam fall. A 

 Persian device is said to consist of a large spherical strong interwoven 

 bamboo cage, or one made of other suitable materials, with intervals 

 throughout three or four inches broad. Under this shelter, which is 

 picketed to the ground in the tiger's haunt, a man provided with two 

 or three short strong spears takes post by night, with a dog or a goat 

 as his companion, wraps himself in his quilt and goes to sleep. A 

 tiger arrives, of whose presence the man is warned by the dog or the 

 goat, and generally after smelling about, rears himself up against the 

 cage, upon which the man stabs him resolutely with his short spear 

 through the interstice of the wicker-work. It seems ludicrous to 

 talk of taking a tiger with bird-lime : but it is said to be so captured 

 in Onde. When a tiger's track is ascertained, the peasants, we are 

 told, collect a quantity of leaves resembling those of the sycamore, 

 and common in most Indian underwoods ; these they smear with a 

 kind of bird-lime, which is made from the berries of an indigenous 

 and by no means scarce tree, and strew them with the adhesive 

 substance uppermost in some gloomy spot to which the tiger resorts 

 in the heat of the day. If he treads on one of the limed leaves he 

 generally begins by trying to shake it from his paw, and not succeeding 

 proceeds to rub it against his jaw in order to get rid of it. Thus his 

 eyes and ears become agglutinated, and the uneasy animal rolls, 



HAT. HMT. DIV. VOL. U. 



perhaps among many more of the smeared leaves, till he becomes 

 enveloped : in this state he has been compared to a man who has been 

 tarred and feathered. The tiger's irritation and uneasiness find vent 

 in dreadful bowlings,- on which the peasants hasten to the spot, and 

 shoot him without difficulty. 



The plan of the box-trap and looking-glass, a device to be found 

 in ancient sculpture, according to Montfaucon, is said to be practised 

 among the Chinese at the present day. 



So much for the trapping of the tiger. The tiger-hunt is perhaps 

 the grandest and most exciting of wild sports. Upon such occasions 

 the whole neighbourhood is on the move, and two hundred elephants 

 have been known to take the field. From ten to thirty of these 

 gigantic animals, each carrying sportsmen armed with rifles, have riot 

 unfrequently started for the jungle. 



Captain Mundy gives a short but spirited description of a tiger- 

 hunt. The party, he tells us, found immense quantities of game, 

 wild hogs, hog-deer, and the neilghie : they however strictly abstained 

 from firing, reserving their whole battery for the nobler game of which 

 they were in pursuit. They had to pass through a thick forest, and 

 the author gives a very interesting description of the power and 

 dexterity of the elephants in overthrowing trees to make a road : 

 " On clearing the wood," says he, " we entered an open space of 

 marshy grass not three feet high; a large herd of cattle were feeding 

 there, and the herdsman was sitting singing under a bush, when, just 

 as the former began to move before us, up sprang the very tiger to 

 whom our visit was intended, and cantered off acrosa a bare plain 

 dotted with small patches of bush-jungle. He took to the opeu 

 country in a style which would have more become a fox than a tiger, 

 who is expected by his pursuers to fight and not to run, and as he 

 was flushed on the flank of the line only one bullet was fired at him 

 ere he cleared the thick grass. He was unhurt ; and we pursued him 

 at full speed. Twice he threw us out by stopping short in small 

 strips of jungle, and then heading back after we had passed ; and he 

 had given ua a very fast trot of about two miles when Colonel Arnold, 

 who led the field, at last reached him by a capital shot, his elephant 

 being in full career. Aa soon as he felt himself wounded the tiger 

 crept into a close thicket of trees and bushes, and crouched. The 

 two leading sportsmen overran the spot where he lay, and as I came 

 up I saw him through an aperture rising to attempt a charge. My 

 mahout had just before, in the heat of the chase, dropped his ankors, 

 or goad, which I had refused to allow him to recover, and the 

 elephant being notoriously savage, and further irritated by the 

 goad ing he had undergone, became consequently unmanageable; he 

 appeared to see the tiger aa aoon as myself, and I had only time to 

 fire one shot when he suddenly rushed with the greatest fury into the 

 thicket, and falling upon his knees nailed the tiger with his tusks to 

 the ground. Such was the violeuce of the shock that my servant, 

 who aat behind, waa thrown out, and one of my guna went overboard. 

 The struggles of my elephant to crush his still resisting foe, who had 

 fixed one paw on his eye, were so energetic that I was obliged to hold 

 on with all my strength to keep myself in the houdah. The second 

 barrel too of the gun, which I still retained in my hand, went off in 

 the scuffle, the ball passing close to the mahout's ear, whose 

 situation, poor fellow, waa anything but enviable. As soon as my 

 elephant was prevailed upon to leave the killing part of the 

 business to the sportsmen they gave the roughly-used tiger the 

 coup-de-grace. It waa a very fine female, with the most beautiful 

 skin I ever saw." 



In the ' Asiatic Annual Register' for 1804, a gentleman who had 

 been present at the killing of above thirty tigers gives an account of 

 a hunting-party of the Nawab Asuf-ud-Dowlah. After describiug 

 the immense cavalcade of the nawab he says: "The first tiger we 

 saw and killed was in the mountaina. We went to attack him about 

 noon ; he was in a narrow valley, which the nawab surrounded with 

 above two hundred elephants ; we heard him growl horribly in a thick 

 bush in the middle of the valley. Being accustomed to the sport, and 

 very eager, I pushed in my elephant ; the fierce beast charged me 

 immediately ; the elephant, a timid animal, turned tail and deprived 

 me of the opportunity to fire. I ventured again, attended by two or 

 three other elephants ; the tiger made a spring, and nearly reached 

 the back of one of the elephants on which were three or four men ; 

 the elephant shook himself so forcibly as to throw these men off his 

 back, and they tumbled into the bush : I gave them up for lost, but 

 was agreeably surprised to see them creep out unhurt. His Excel- 

 lency was all this time on a riaing ground near the thicket looking on 

 calmly, and beckoning to me to drive the tiger towards him. I made 

 another attempt, and with more success ; he darted out towards me 

 on my approach, roaring furiously and lashing hia sides with his tail. 

 I luckily got a shot and hit him ; he retreated into the bush, and ten 

 or twelve elephants just then pushed into the thicket, alarmed the 

 tiger, and obliged him to run towards the nawab, who instantly gave 

 him a warm reception, and with the assistance of some of his omras, 

 or lords, laid the tiger sprawling on his side. A loud shout of ' wha ! 

 wha ! ' proclaimed the victory." 



There is in Bishop Heber's ' Journal ' a most graphic description of 

 a tiger-hunt, but our limits will not permit us to indulge in more of 

 these stirring accounts. 



Those who have represented the tiger aa untameable have no 



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