THE BIOGRAPHY OF A TIGER 13 



Such thoughts, however, seldom trouble the sportsman 

 and naturalist, although they may add to that fascination 

 which all forests exercise over the human mind. 



Wherever the broad stretches of shingle are succeeded 

 by sand, or by the moist margins of pools, the tale of the 

 jungle is clearly unfolded. The tracks of creatures that 

 wander by night and in Indian forests few of the larger 

 fauna move by day have inscribed a fresh page each 

 twenty-four hours, and it needs but little practice to read 

 what is imprinted thereon. Here the deep and pointed 

 slot of that great woodland stag, the sambar ; there the 

 rounder-toed track of a solitary forest boar, as he picked 

 a leisurely and truculent way under this steep bank ; and 

 perchance, also, the lately used mud-wallow, in which the 

 discoloured water has not yet had time to clear. See ! a 

 prowling panther passed this way during the night, for 

 his footprints overlie all the marks left by the peafowl 

 and jungle fowl that drink before roosting for the night. 



It was on just such a cold-weather morning, soon after 

 dawn, down a retired reach of the forest-penned Sipna, 

 that the brown ground-squirrels set up a sudden shrill 

 squeaking, and a bevy of peafowl in the river-bed stretched 

 their long necks, bright-eyed, alert, with clucking notes of 

 warning. Next moment the big birds made rapidly for 

 the shelter of the jungle, some running as only a peafowl 

 can run, others leaping into a heavy flight in order to 

 clear the high bank above them. 



Round a corner, a hundred paces away, stood, where 

 nothing had shown a moment before, a vision of banded 

 black and gold. Above the white of chest and chin, 

 yellow eyes, set in a strangely mesmeric forehead, gazed 

 inquiringly down the deserted vista. The lower jaw, with 

 its cruel fangs just bared, hung slightly opened, and pro- 

 jected in that stern manner symbolic all the world over 

 of uncompromising animalism, the saliva on the retracted 

 black lips glistening in the early light, and gently quivering 



