THE CAT TRIBE 



Phvtt h Fratilli Alinari] 



A TIGER BEFORE SLEEPING 



Tigers, when about to sleep, sit in this position ; token more drowsy, they lie down or roll over on their backs 



Valley he shot three of these tigers in a day, putting them up in thick bush-scrub by the 

 aid of dogs. 



The ROYAL BENGAL TIGER, so called, and very properly called in the old books of natural 

 history, is a different and far more savage beast. It is almost invariably a ferocious savage, 

 fierce by nature, never wishing to be otherwise than a destroyer of beasts mainly, but often of 

 men. Compared with the lion, it is far longer, but rather lighter, for the lion is more massive 

 and compact. " A well-grown tigress," says Sir Samuel Baker, " may weigh on an average 240 

 Ibs. live weight. A very fine tiger may weigh 440 Ibs., but if fat the same tiger would weigh 500 

 Ibs. There may be tigers which weigh 50 Ibs. more than this ; but I speak according to my 

 experience. I have found that a tiger of 9 feet 8 inches is about 2 inches above the average. 

 The same skin may be stretched to measure 10 feet. A tiger in the Zoological Gardens is a long, 

 lithe creature with little flesh. Such a specimen affords a poor example of this grand animal in 

 its native jungles, with muscles in their full, ponderous development from continual exertion in 

 nightly travels over long distances, and in mortal struggles when wrestling with its prey. A well- 

 fed tiger is by no means a slim figure. On the contrary, it is exceedingly bulky, broad in the 

 shoulders, back, and loins, and with an extraordinary girth of limbs, especially in the forearms 

 and wrists." 



This ponderous, active, and formidably armed creature is, as might be expected, able to hold 

 its own wherever Europeans do not form part of the regular population. In India the peasants 

 are quite helpless even against a cattle-killing tiger in a populous part of the country. In the 

 large jungles, and on the islands at the mouths of the great rivers, the tigers have things all their 

 own way. Things are no better in the Far East. A large peninsula near Singapore is said to 



