288 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



a very large cattle-eating tiger near Chanclvel iu the 

 Nimar district. This animal was believed by the cow- 

 herds to have killed more than a thousand head of 

 cattle ; and one of the best gfrazinof grounds in all that 

 country had been quite abandoned by them in con- 

 sequence. His haunts lay in a network of ravines that 

 lead down to the Narbada river — now included in the 

 Ponasa Eeserved Forest, which I was then exploring. 

 The herds of cattle having been withdrawn from the 

 grassy glades on the banks of the Narbada where he 

 usually preyed on them, he had lately been coming out 

 into the open country, and had been heard for several 

 nights roaming round about the village of Chandvel on 

 the edge of the forest. I found his tracks within a 

 hundred yards of the buffalo pens of the village the 

 morning I arrived ; and a few nights before he had 

 broken into a Banjara emcampment a little way off, and 

 killed and dragged away a heifer, which he ate within 

 hearing distance of the encampment, charging through 

 the darkness and driving back the Banjaras and their 

 dogs when they tried to interrupt him. I picketed a juicy 

 young buffalo for him the night I arrived, about half 

 a mile from the village where his tracks showed he 

 regularly passed at night. Next morning it was found 

 to have been killed and dragged away about a hundred 

 yards to a small dry watercourse ; and, after ha\ ing 

 been cleaned as scientifically as any butcher could have 

 done it, eaten up all but the head, skin, feet, and one 

 fore-quarter. If his footprints had not already shown 

 him to be an unusually large tiger, this feat of gorman- 

 dising would have sufficiently done so. "We started 

 about ten o'clock on his trail. It was the 12th of 

 xVpril, and a hotter day I never remember. Long before 



