512 



CARNIVORA 



but some specimens reach to 12 feet. The female is somewhat 

 smaller, and has a lighter and narrower head. The Tiger has no 

 mane, but in old males the hair of the cheeks is rather long and 

 spreading. The ground colour of the upper and outer parts of the 

 head, body, limbs, and tail is a bright rufous fawn, and these parts 

 are beautifully marked with transverse stripes of a dark, almost 

 black colour. The markings vary much in different individuals, 

 and even on the two sides of the same individual. The under 

 parts of the body, the inside of the limbs, the cheeks, and a large 

 spot over each eye are nearly white. The Tigers which inhabit 



FIG. 225. The Tiger (Felis tigris). 



hotter regions, as Bengal and the south Asiatic islands, have shorter 

 and smoother hair, and are more richly coloured and distinctly 

 striped than those of Northern China and Siberia, in which the fur 

 is longer, softer, and lighter coloured. 



The Tiger is exclusively Asiatic, but has a very wide range in 

 that continent, having been found in almost all suitable localities 

 south of a line drawn from the river Euphrates, passing along the 

 southern shores of the Caspian and Sea of Aral by Lake Baikal to 

 the Sea of Okhotsk. Its most northern range is the territory 

 of the Amur, its most southern the islands of Sumatra, Java, and 

 Bali. Westward it reaches to Turkish Georgia and eastward to 

 the island of Saghalin. It is absent, however, from the great 

 elevated plateau of Central Asia, nor does it inhabit Ceylon, 





