TIGER-SHOOTING. 163 



yards of him, rushed out and knocked him over, 

 killing him almost instanteously. She, however, 

 left him, and never ate any of the body as she 

 would have done had she been a real man-eater. 



The evening of our arrival we had three or four 

 c hailas ' tied out, and the following morning had 

 the satisfaction of hearing one was killed. 



Accordingly, about eleven o'clock, we started 

 with some eighty beaters for the scene of action. 

 The carcase of the calf had been dragged by the 

 tigress into a small nullah that debouched into 

 the main river ; about half-a-mile further on there 

 was a similar nullah, and between these two we took 

 up our positions in trees, andsome fifty yards apart. 

 The beat had not commenced more than five 

 minutes, and I was gazing eagerly to my front, 

 when I saw the tigress followed by three cubs not 

 quite half-grown, and about the size of big mastiffs, 

 coming straight towards me. 



She was slouching sulkily along, evidently 

 much put out at being disturbed, and the cubs 

 trotted after her, one of them every now and then 

 stopping, with pricked ears, and gazing back 

 towards the beaters ; then it would scamper on 

 after its mother. It was a pretty sylvan scene, 

 and the sunlight, falling on their sleek-striped 

 hides as they moved noiselessly over the dead 

 leaves that carpeted the ground, glittered and 



M 2 



