4 



G2 FELTDJE. 



place to place, though probably keeping in general within an area 

 of 15 or 20 miles in diameter. In the hot season from March to 

 June their range is usually more restricted, as vegetation is dried 

 up or burnt except near the few spots where water is still found. 



As has already been remarked, tigers are very much less in the 

 habit of roaring than lions are. Where the latter are common 

 scarcely an evening passes without their being repeatedly heard. 

 I have often been in places where tigers were equally abundant, 

 but it is an exception for their roaring to attract attention *. 

 Their usual call is very similar to that of the lion, a prolonged 

 moaning, thrilling sound, repeated twice or thrice, becoming louder 

 and quicker, and ending with three or four repetitions of the last 

 portion of it. Besides this, there is a peculiar loud " woof " pro- 

 duced when the animal is disturbed or surprised, a growl that it 

 utters when provoked, and the well-known guttural sound of rage 

 repeated two or three times when it charges. When hit by a 

 bullet a tiger generally roars, but tigresses, at all events, very 

 often do not ; 1 have on three occasions at least known a tigress 

 receive a mortal wound and pass on without making a sound. 



Tigers swim well and take readily to water, even crossing arms 

 of the sea. They but rarely ascend trees, and appear quite incapable 

 of climbing a vertical stem, large or small. It is true that they 

 have been known to take men out of trees, from heights it is said 

 of even 18 or 20 feet ; but such cases are always due to some pecu- 

 liarity in the tree, a sloping trunk, or a fork 8 or 10 feet from the 

 ground, from which the animal can get a fresh start. As a rule a 

 tiger, like other mammals, pays no attention to men in a tree even 

 a very few feet from the ground, if they do not move or speak. 



In fact tigers are much less addicted to springing than is popu- 

 larly supposed, and rarely move their hind legs off the ground 

 except to clear an obstacle. Still they are capable of springing 

 some distance. They have a habit, like cats, of scratching wood, 

 and often show a predilection for the trunk of a particular tree, 

 on which the marks of their claws may be seen up to a height of 

 30 or, it is said, 12 feet. 



The ordinary game-eating tiger of the forest lives mainly on deer 

 and pigs, and avoids the neighbourhood of human habitations. 

 Almost all tigers, however, occasionally kill cattle. The wild 

 animals commonly eaten by tigers are pigs, deer of all kinds, nylgai, 

 four-horned antelope, and porcupines. The last are evidently a 

 common prey. 1 have repeatedly, in the Central Provinces, when 

 skinning tigers, found fragments of porcupine-quill encysted be- 

 neath the skin. Peafowl may be slain at times, but more often, 

 I think, by leopards than by tigers, and the same may be said of 

 monkeys. Bears, though not often attacked, occasionally fall 



* It is true that my own experience was at not quite the same time of the year. 

 I have been repeatedly in jungles inhabited by tigers from November till Jnue, 

 and only in lion-haunted tracts in July and August. But all travellers notice 

 the noisiness of lions. 



