THE BIOGRAPHY OF A TIGER 21 



and threes along the winding river-bed, drop suddenly on 

 the damp sand, and run to become brown stones at the 

 water's shining edge. The monkeys whoop and swing ; 

 the red spur-fowls cackle in the rustling leaves; the 

 khdkar barks hoarsely to his mate on the hillside, the 

 hot orange glow of sunset spreading meanwhile over all 

 the leafless woods. 



" Whe-e-e-ew! Kuck-kaya-kya-kuck'm! " It is the golden- 

 hackled jungle-cock's salute to the dying day. 



For a few minutes there comes a hushed pause. It 

 seems a little greyer, darker, under the bamboo clumps ; 

 a frog croaks sleepily in the river-bed ; from the forest 

 beyond it a nightjar utters his first low " Chuckoo-chuckoo " ; 

 something heavy is heard in the distance, stealthily crack- 

 ling in the leaves far uphill ; a tiny fluffy owlet emerges, 

 round and wonder-eyed, from a hole in that great dead 

 tree, and chatters volubly of the coming night. 



Then, somehow or other, it is full yellow moonlight ; a 

 light scarcely less bright than the evening glow so lately 

 departed, but such a wondrous welcome change from its 

 heat, turning greens to blue, blues to grey, casting a 

 silvern fairy charm over the calm scene with its soothing, 

 cool, deliciously peaceful effulgence. 



It is the tiger's hour the hour of the shadowy leopard. 

 The greater fauna of the jungle are now all issuing forth 

 to seek food and water ; to roam, prowl, browse, slay, or 

 be seized in turn, until the breaking of the distant dawn. 

 That rustling in the leaves may be anything sambar, 

 bison, the black sloth bear snuffing and scenting his 

 vegetarian and insect diet, or a sounder of scurrying wild 

 hogs but the feline race walk more circumspectly ; for 

 them the silent watercourse, the noiseless forest-edge, 

 and a velvet-padded deliberation. 



Away in the distance, faint but clear, rises the un- 

 accustomed sound of a cart bumping over the rough 

 boulders of the dry Sipna, and the staccato cry of a 



