342 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



water in these rain-made courses usually lies under 

 the shadow of the trees between a gently shelving 

 beach and a naked earth-cliff, any height from three 

 feet to thirty, clothed as to its overhanging crest with 

 grass and underwood. When a track enters the 

 jungle (the tiger jumps the water if narrow, but 

 wades or swims if he must) you may be tolerably 

 sure it will roughly skirt the crest of the overhanging 

 bank (unless it be too high or the water below too 

 wide for a spring to the farther side where deer 

 and other creatures come to drink). The tiger, no 

 doubt, prowls along these tracks with an eye to 

 anything that may come to the water. 



His tastes appear to be catholic. On one occasion 

 we picked up the headless body of a monkey ; it was 

 quite warm, blood still flowing from the severed 

 neck. Clearly we had disturbed a tiger in the very 

 act of catching his unworthy prey, for examinations 

 of the ground showed just what had happened : ten 

 or a dozen light tracks in the sand radiating from 

 one spot by the water indicated how the survivors 

 had scattered in flight ; a little disturbance of the 

 sand at that spot with incriminating pugs showed 

 where the tiger had alighted in his leap from cover 

 across the water ; two more and deeper pugs showed 

 where he took off in his return jump ; and a step 

 or two inside the jungle was the dead monkey in a 

 pool of blood. The tiger had bitten the head off as 

 he heard us coming and had bolted. I sat over the 

 mortal remains of that monkey from the moment we 

 found it about half-past five for four hours, but 



