SUPERSTITIONS REGARDING TIGERS 



discovered that the match-box containing this curious 

 substance had not been opened, as it was believed to be 

 one of the many boxes to which his particular department 

 often fell a victim. He much regretted, however, having 

 missed the opportunity of examining such a phenomenal 

 specimen ! 



There are many other theories as to the traits or habits 

 of the tiger, which though doubtless founded on experi- 

 ence as long, or even longer than my own, I have not quoted, 

 as they do not happen to have come under my personal 

 notice. One such hypothesis, for example, is that a tiger 

 and tigress will sometimes hunt together, the one taking 

 up a position while the other drives the game towards it.* 

 Another, that if a kill is handled by any human being, 

 the tiger will not return to it ; or again though this is 

 more probably a native superstition that if the animal 

 killed by a tiger should happen to fall with its head pointing 

 to the west, the tiger will abandon it, or at any rate will 

 not return ! 



Before concluding these remarks on tigers and their 

 ways, I am tempted to quote a curious incident which, 

 while it has no reference to the habits of these animals, 

 yet proves how easily even sportsmen of experience may 

 sometimes be deceived and led to imagine, from the seem- 

 ingly good evidence before them, that they have discovered 

 a new species. Here is the story as told to me by one who 

 had read it in an old Indian sporting magazine. 



Many years ago a party of sportsmen in Bengal had 

 shot a tiger, and on examining it later found it had ears 

 like those of a crop-eared fox-terrier and a tail but a few 

 inches in length. 



After careful consideration, they solemnly pronounced 

 the beast to be a hitherto undiscovered species of the tiger, 

 and reported their discovery in the magazine above quoted, 

 and after some controversial correspondence on the subject, 

 the strange animal was finally accepted as a new species* 



Meanwhile, a sportsman of an adjacent district, who 

 happened to have been on leave in England at the time, 

 returned to India, and coming across the magazine, was 



* For a verification of this see the author's last work, " Tigerland," 

 p. 151. 



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