A Hyrcan Tiger 245 



Siberian tiger, but perhaps a little longer than 

 an Indian " Christmas " tiger. 1 



Under the skin on the tiger's shoulder I found 

 a lump which turned out to be a round leaden 

 bullet enveloped in tissue. It was fired no doubt 

 by some Turkoman shikari, and I should like to 

 have heard the history of the shot ! Was the 

 sequel, I wonder, "a smile on the face of the 

 tiger " ? I should not have cared to fire that 

 bullet at a tiger myself! 



The hunter who was proficient on the gaokal 

 told me that man-eating tigers, meaning tigers 

 that regularly preyed on man in preference to 

 game, were unknown in Mazanderan, and in the 

 course of his life he had only known two men 

 killed by tigers, both of them by beasts they 

 had wounded. The hunters that do visit this 

 no -man's -land, if they see a tiger, generally 

 "pass by on the other side." The inferiority of 

 their weapons is good and sufficient reason why 

 they should do so, but I need hardly say that 

 the usual Persian story is rather more sensational. 

 Before visiting Mazanderan, I was given a spirited 

 description how the people of this province were 

 in the habit of following up tigers on foot and 



1 The diminutive specimen labelled Felis tigris virgata in the 

 Natural History Museum does not, I think, adequately represent 

 the Persian species. 



