THE TIGER. 311 



this single animal. So far as I could learn, he bad 

 been killing alone for about a year — another tiger who 

 had formerly assisted him in his fell occupation having 

 been shot the previous hot weather. Betiil has always 

 been unusually favoured with man-eaters, the cause 

 apparently being the great number of cattle that come 

 for a limited season to graze in that country, and a 

 scarcity of other prey at the time when they are absent, 

 combined with the unusually convenient cover for tigers 

 existing alongside most of the roads. The man-eaters 

 of the Central Provinces rarely confine themselves 

 solely to human food, though some have almost done 

 so to my own knowledge. Various circumstances may 

 lead a tiger to prey on man ; anything, in fact, that 

 incapacitates him from killing other game more difficult 

 to procure. A tiger who has got very fat and heavy, or 

 very old, or who has been disabled by a wound, or a 

 tigress who has had to bring up young cubs where other 

 game is scarce — all these take naturally to man, who is 

 the easiest animal of all to kill, as soon as failure with 

 other prey brings on the pangs of hunger ; and once a 

 tiger has found out how easy it is to overcome the lord 

 of creation, and how good he is to eat, he is apt to stick 

 to him, and, if a tigress, to bring up her progeny in the 

 same line of business. The greater prevalence of man- 

 eaters in one district than in another I consider to be 

 that I have mentioned. Great grazing districts, where 

 the cattle come only for a limited season, are always the 

 worst. Where the cattle remain all the year round, as 

 in Nimdr, the tigers rarely take to man-eating. 



As soon as I could ride in the howdah, and long 

 before I could do more than hobble on foot, 1 marched 

 to a place called Chiirkhera, where the last kill had been 

 reported. My usually straggling following was now 



