182 SHIKAR SKETCHES. 



still have had the courage to show the fight she 

 did! 



Sending back to camp for the elephant to 

 carry her there, we went to inspect the place 

 where I had put her up, and there found the 

 freshly-killed body of a stag cheetal, doubtless 

 the one Davidson had fired at, but which he had 

 evidently missed. On skinning and cutting open 

 this tigress whose skin lies before me as I write 

 we found three cubs in her womb. They were 

 the size of kittens, and were distinctly marked ; 

 so would have been born in a few days. 



Poor Hebbert's face, when he returned to camp 

 and saw our bag, and heard all about the ' scuffle,' 

 and what he had missed, fell sadly ; but he was 

 too good a sportsman to grudge us our good- 

 fortune, and congratulated us heartily. This 

 tigress was a large one, and measured eight feet 

 nine inches. 



It is extraordinary that an animal so large as a 

 tiger should have such marvellous powers of con- 

 cealing itself, even from the keenest vision ; but 

 this, like many another wise provision of Nature, 

 has been, I suppose, given it to enable it to 

 approach its prey the more easily, as well as to 

 aid it in escaping from its enemy man. 



Who has not seen a hare squatting in a fallow- 

 field, a hen pheasant among the dry underwood 



