THE TRAIL OF THE TIGER 281 



marked as well as the most ferocious. So far as 

 known, Siberian, Chinese, Corean and Persian 

 tigers prey on deer, cattle, pigs, goats, dogs, ac- 

 cording to locality and opportunity. I'have not 

 heard of a habitual man-eater among any of these 

 members of the tiger family. But the Indian, 

 which is, also the Malayan, is divided according to 

 its predatory habit into three classes : 



(1) Cattle killers. 



(2) Game killers, and 



(3) Man-eaters. 



The cattle killer is the largest, and the most pow- 

 erful of the three, but the least to be feared by 

 man. He is, in fact, by way of being sociable, prone 

 to take up his abode in the jungle nearby a settle- 

 ment where, on terms of easy friendliness with the 

 village people, he lives and levies tribute of a cow 

 or bullock from every three to five days, accord- 

 ing to the size and condition of the victim. Some- 

 times if disturbed in his stalk or at the killing, 

 he increases the number, apparently out of pure 

 wantonness of spirit, as a warning that he must be 

 left alone under penalty of death. I have heard 

 of tigers killing in this way as many as eight or 

 ten animals, one after the other, and in each such 

 case to come to my personal knowledge the natives 

 have attributed the depredation to a particular 

 tiger that had been interrupted in its cattle killing 



