104 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



the foregoing list by any means exhausts the 

 tiger's choice of food, for it is known to prey 

 on bears, leopards, and even other tigers, as 

 well as on buffalo, young elephants, and tapirs, 

 the last being, perhaps, its favourite food in 

 the Malay jungle. 



The education of the cattle-eating and 

 man-eating tiger suggests problems not un- 

 like that of the "rogue" elephant, already 

 noticed, but the process is less wrapped in 

 mystery. Antelopes are hard to catch, and 

 young elephants have big mothers to defend 

 them. What, as Americans would say, was 

 wrong with a tender heifer from a tame flock ? 

 Enterprising tigers, tried the experiment with 

 the most satisfactory results. It must have been 

 so easy to creep silently up to the herd, or, 

 better still, to lie in ambush beside some rock 

 commanding the road along which the native 

 herdsman drove his charges every evening at 

 sundown. To pick out a victim, spring at its 

 head, grip it by the throat and break its neck, 

 must have been child's play to a tiger. Then, 

 when the rest of the herd stampeded, and the 

 panic-stricken native was probably half way up 

 a tree, the dead beast would be dragged away 

 to the jungle and there gradually devoured, 

 the tiger returning to the kill more than once 

 and scattering the jackals and vultures that 

 ravened in his absence. So hearty a meal, 



