246 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



killing them with their hatchets. The old name 

 of this district was Tabaristan, "the country of 

 hatchets," and I fear that, slender though the 

 foundation may seem, this fact together with the 

 vivid Persian imagination was the true origin of 

 the story. 1 



Considering the abundance of game and the 

 fewness of the tigers' foes, it is quite a problem 

 why the latter are not more numerous in these 

 parts. A similar question arises, I believe, with 

 regard to lions in some parts of Africa. The 

 answer perhaps lies in the existence of a natural 

 law, the tendency of which is in the inverse 

 direction to that known as the " struggle for 

 existence," in which the main factors are food 

 and foes. It may be that if a periodic census 

 of the carnivora were taken it would be dis- 

 covered that "good times" diminish fecundity. 



Although, as I have said, one might wander 

 in these forests for an indefinite time without 

 seeing a single tiger, I had the fortune to come 

 across another; and as few records, if any, exist 

 of meetings with the tiger of Persia, I tell the 

 tale. 



1 Thomas Herbert, writing in 1638, quotes another still queerer 

 story about the inhabitants of Hyrcania : 



"Hyrcanaeque admorunt ubera Tygres." 

 (" Them with their duggs the Hyrcan Tygers fed ! ") 



