44 



The Living Animals of the World 



all their own way. Things are no better in the Far East. A large peninsula near Singapore 

 is said to have been almost abandoned by its cultivators lately, owing to the loss of life caused 

 by the tigers. In the populous parts of India the tiger is far more stealthy than in the 

 out-of-the-way districts. It only hunts by night ; and after eating a part of the animal killed, 

 moves off to a distance, and does not return. Otherwise the regular habit is to return to the 

 kill just at or after dusk, and finish the remainder. Its suspicions seem quite lulled to sleep 

 after dark. Quite recently a sportsman sat up to watch for a tiger at a water-hole. It was 

 in the height of the Indian hot season, when very little water was left. All the creatures 

 of that particular neighbourhood were in the habit of coming to drink at one good pool still 

 left in the rocky bed of the river. There the tigers came too. The first night they did not 

 come until all the other creatures hog, deer, peacocks, and monkeys had been down to drink. 

 They then came so softly over the sand that the gunner in waiting did not hear them pass. 

 His first knowledge that they were there was due to the splashing they made as they entered 

 the water. It was quite dark, and he felt not a little nervous, for the bush on which he was 



seated on a small platform 

 was only some 10 feet high. 

 He heard the two tigers pass 

 him, not by their footsteps, 

 but by the dripping of the 

 water as it ran off their 

 bodies on to the sand. Next 

 night they came again. This 

 time, though it was dark, 

 he shot one in a very in- 

 genious manner. The two 

 tigers walked into the water, 

 and apparently lay down or 

 sat down in it, with their 

 heads out. They only moved 

 occasionally, lapping the water, 

 but did not greatly disturb 

 the surface. On this was 

 reflected a bright star from 

 the sky above. The sports- 

 man put the sight of the rifle 

 on the star, and kept it up 

 to his shoulder. Something 



obliterated the star, and he instantly fired. The "something" was the tiger's head, which the 

 bullet duly hit. 



The hill-tigers of India are, or were, much more given to hunting by day than the jungle- 

 tigers. In the Nilgiri Hills of Southern India the late General Douglas Hamilton said that 

 before night the tigers were already about hunting, and that in the shade of evening it was 

 dangerous to ride on a pony not because the tigers wished to kill the rider, but because they 

 might mistake the pony and its rider for a sambar deer. He was stalked like this more than 

 once. Often, when stalking sambar deer and ibex by day, he saw the tigers doing the same, 

 or after other prey. "My brother Kichard," he writes, "was out after a tiger which the 

 hillmen reported had killed a buffalo about an hour before. He saw the tiger on first getting 

 to the ground, and the tiger had seen him. It was lying out in the open watching the buffalo, 

 and shuffled into the wood, and would not come out again. Next morning, when we got to 

 the ground, the tiger was moving from rock to rock, and had dragged the body into a nullah. 

 . . . We were upon the point of starting home when we observed a number of vultures coming 

 down to the carcase. The vultures began to collect in large numbers on the opposite hill. I 



[Panon't Green. 



flioto by Scholastic Pkoto. Co.] 



A HALF-GROWN TIGER CUB. 



Tigerg " grow to their head," like children. The head of a half -grown cub is as long, though not 

 so broad, as that of tbe adult. 



