CAPTURE OF ANIMALS. 65 



mode of concealment that the hunters always direct their steps to 

 tlie korinda-bush, knowing well that if a Tiger should be in the 

 neighborhood, it would be tolerably certain to be lying under the 

 sombre shade of the korinda branches." 



There are a number of modes adopted by the natives of 

 Asia, for killing the Tiger, such as spring-bows armed with 

 poisoned arrows, nets, cages with trap-doors, enticing them 

 into locations where they can be shot, &c. ; but they are all 

 inferior to the steel-ti'ap. This instrument should be intro- 

 duced wherever this lurking marauder abounds. The habit 

 of returning to tlie unfinished carcass of the beast it has slain 

 or found, which I have already noticed as pertaining to the 

 cat family, is very strong in the Tiger, and can be taken 

 advantage of in trapping them, in the same manner as de- 

 scribed for the lion and cougar. The trap shovild be set 

 near the hind parts of the carcass, as the Tiger always be- 

 gins with those parts and eats toward the head. They may 

 also be taken by setting traps along the paths which they 

 make through the jungle near tlieir lairs. In all cases the 

 traps should be carefully secreted. A Tiger is easily killed 

 with a bullet. Next to the brain and heart, the luno-s and 

 liver are its most mortal parts. A Tiger when struck by a bul- 

 let in the liver generally dies within fifteen or twenty minutes. 

 If once wounded anywhere they usually die, though perhaps 

 not immediately. From some unknown cause a wound on 

 a Tiger very soon assumes an angry appearance, becomes 

 tainted and the abode of maggots, and finally proves flital. 

 This tendency to putrefaction in the Tiger, renders it neces- 

 sary that they should be skinned immediately after thev are 

 killed if the preservation of the skin is any object. Especially 

 should the Tiger be removed out of the sunslilne, instantly 

 after it is slain. A delay of ten or fifteen minutes will often 

 ruin the skin by the loosening of the hair from putrefaction. 

 The skin after being removed should be at once stretched, and 

 treated with a very strong solution of salt, alum, and catechu. 



Several other large animals of the cat kind are found in 

 Asia and Africa, such as the Leopard, the Ounce, the Riman- 



5 



