THE TIGER. 267 



of every other animal has ceased to afford sufficient 

 excitement to undergo the toil of hunting in a tropical 

 country. 



It will have been gathered from previous descriptions 

 that the hot season, the height of which is in April and 

 May, is the most favourable time for hunting the tiger. 

 Then the water supply of the country is at its lowest 

 ebb ; and the tiger, being very impatient of thirst, seeks 

 the lowest valleys, where, too, much of the game he 

 preys on has congregated, and where the village cattle 

 are regularly watered. In Central India tigers vary a 

 good deal in their habits and range ; and they may be 

 roughly classed into those which habitually prey on 

 wild animals, those which live chiefly on domestic cattle, 

 and a few that confine their diet to the human species. 

 Not, of course, that any tiger adheres invariably to the 

 same sort of prey. But there are a large number that 

 appear to prefer each of the former methods of existence, 

 and a few that select the latter. 



The reojular game-killinej tiojer is retired in his 

 habits, living chiefly among the hills, retreating readily 

 from man, and is altogether a very innocuous animal, if 

 not even positively beneficial in keeping down the herds 

 of deer and nilgai that prey upon the crops. His hot- 

 weather haunt is usually some rocky ravine among the 

 hills, where pools of water remain, and shelving rocks or 

 overhanging trees afford him shelter from the sun. He 

 is a light- made beast (called by shikaris a lodliia hdgh), 

 very active and enduring, and, from this as well as his 

 shyness, generally difficult to bring to bag. 



The cattle-lifter, again, is usually an older and 

 heavier animal (called oontia bdgh, from his faintly 

 striped coat resembling the colour of a camel), very 



