68 HOW I KILLED THE TIGER. 



Austin vouches for a third specimen. It is on 

 record that a black tiger was found dead near 

 Chittagong, on the North-East frontier of India. 



The tiger is almost exclusively confined to Asia. 

 It is found on the southern shores of the 

 Caspian, in North Persia, the Herat district, 

 Turkestan, Central Asia, Southern Siberia, and 

 all Mongolia. In China, Burmah, Siam, and the 

 Malay Peninsula. There are large numbers in 

 the Islands of Java and Sumatra. It haunts the 

 northern end of the Bay of Bengal ; in fact it is 

 found from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya. 



The tiger is such a persistent scourge in India 

 that the natives employ many ingenious con- 

 trivances to snare and trap it. The Minipuris 

 have the courage to hunt it with a net and 

 spear. In the cold and wet seasons of the year 

 the tiger has no fixed abiding place, but wanders 

 over immense tracts of country in search of 

 food. In the dry season it haunts the banks of 

 rivers and patches of long grass. Tigers breed 

 at all times of the year. 



The destruction wrought by these creatures in 

 India is enormous, the waste of human life due to 

 them is appalling. A Government return gives the 

 number of animals killed by tigers in the Madras 

 Presidency during the quarter ending 3ist 

 December, 1891, as follows : six hundred and 



