92 WILD HKASTS AND Til Kill WAYS CHAP. 



insurmountable ; but it is absurd to suppose that a tiger can actu- 

 ally lift and carry a full-grown cow or bullock in its jaws without 

 leaving a trace of the drag upon the surface. 



Many persons when in pursuit of tigers are accustomed to tic 

 up a small buffalo of four or six months old for bait ; the natives will 

 naturally supply the poorest specimen of their herds, unless it is 

 specially selected ; therefore it may be quite possible for a largo 

 male tiger to carry so small an animal without allowing any portion 

 of the body (excepting the legs) to drag upon the ground. As a 

 rule the tiger will not attempt to carry, but it will lift and pull 

 simultaneously if the body is heavy. 



The attack of a large tiger is terrific, and the effect may be well 

 imagined of an animal of such vast muscular proportions, weighing 

 between 400 and 500 Ibs., springing with great velocity, and ex- 

 erting its momentum at the instant that it seizes a bnllock by the 

 neck. It is supposed by the natives that the tiger, when well 

 fastened upon the crest, by fixing its teeth in the back of the neck 

 at the first onset, continues its spring so as to pass over the animal 

 attacked. This wrenches the neck suddenly round, and as the 

 animal struggles, the dislocation is easily effected. The tiger then 

 changes the hold to underneath the throat, and drags the body to 

 some convenient retreat, where the meal may be commenced in 

 security. With very few exceptions the tiger breaks the neck of 

 every animal it kills. Some persons have imagined that this is 

 done by a blow of the paw, but this is an error. The tiger does 

 not usually strike (like the lion), but it merely seizes with its claws, 

 and uses them to clutch firm hold, and to lacerate its victim. I 

 have seen several examples of the tiger's attack upon man, and in 

 no instance has the individual suffered from the shock of any blow ; 

 the tiger has seized, and driven deeply its claws into the flesh, and 

 with this tremendous purchase it has held the victim, precisely as 

 the hands of a man would clutch a prisoner ; at the same time it 

 has taken a firm hold with its teeth, and either killed its victim by 

 a crunch of the jaws, or broken the shoulder-blade. In attacking 

 man, the tiger generally claws the head, and at the same moment 

 it fixes its teeth upon the shoulder. An Indian is generally slight, 

 and shallow in the chest, therefore the widespread jaws can in- 

 clude both chest and back when seized in the tiger's mouth. I 

 have seen men who were thus attacked, and each claw has cut 

 down to the skull, leaving clean incisions from the brow across the 

 forehead and over the scalp, terminating at the back of the neck. 

 These cuts were as neatly drawn across the skull as though done 

 by a sharp pruning-knife ; but the wounded men recovered from 



