9G WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WAYS CHAP. 



A newly-arrived party, having heard that some native cow has 

 been carried oil' within a week, will make a reconnaissance of the 

 unrounding country upon their elephants, and will examine every 

 watercourse for tracks. We will suppose that after some hours of 

 diligent search the long-wished-for pugs or footmarks have been 

 discovered. Now the science of the chase must be exhibited, and 

 the habits of the tiger carefully considered. The first considera- 

 tion will be the drinking-place. If the middle of the dry season, 

 say the beginning of May, the heat will be intense, and the hot 

 wind will feel as though it had passed over a heated brick-kiln. 

 The water will have entirely disappeared, unless a river shall be 

 I>erinanent in the neighbourhood. It will be necessary to procure 

 two or perhaps three buffaloes to tie up iu various positions not 

 far from water, as baits for the tiger during the hours of night, 

 when it will be wandering forth from its secure retreat and search- 

 ing for its expected prey. The buffaloes should be at least twelve 

 months old ; I prefer them when eighteen months, as they are 

 then heavy animals and would afford two hearty meals, each suffi- 

 cient to gorge the tiger to an extent that, after drinking, would 

 render it lazy and inclined to sleep. Great care should be taken 

 in the selection of these buffaloes. The natives will assuredly 

 offer their skinny and unhealthy animals; but a tiger, unless 

 nearly starved, will frequently refuse to attack a miserable skeleton, 

 and like ourselves it prefers a fat and appetising attraction. It 

 must be distinctly remembered that after the tiger has devoured 

 the hind-quarters of the animal it has killed, it requires a deep 

 draught of water; it is therefore necessary that the buffalo as 

 bait should be tied up somewhere within a couple of hundred yards 

 of a drinking-place, as the least distance ; otherwise, instead of 

 lying down somewhere near the remains of its prey, it must 

 wander to a great distance to drink. The stomach, being full of 

 flesh, will naturally become distended with water, and the gorged 

 tiger will not be in the humour to undertake a return journey of 

 perhaps a mile to watch over the remains of its kill ; it will there- 

 fore lie down in some thick covert near the spot by the nullah 

 where it recently drank, instead of returning to repose in the 

 neighbourhood of its recent victim. This will throw out the 

 calculations of the shikari, who would expect that the tiger will 

 be lying somewhere near the spot where it dragged the buffalo. 

 The beat will under such false conditions be arranged to include 

 an area in which the tiger is supposed to be asleep after its great 

 meal, but in reality it may be a mile or two away in some un- 

 known direction near the water. Great precaution is necessary in 



