CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 105 



without the fatigue of a chase or the risk of 

 a fight, must have been acclaimed a vast im- 

 provement on the old-fashioned way of doing 

 things, and from that day forth the tiger would 

 be a confirmed cattle-eater, nevermore troubling 

 about other food that could be procured only 

 by means less simple. There is therefore 

 no difficulty whatever in understanding how 

 tigers came to be educated to a taste for beef, 

 and the evolution of the man-eater is as evi- 

 dent, since from the cattle to their driver was 

 but a step, and the first man-eater may have 

 killed his human victim accidentally when 

 springing on one of the herd. Yet, in spite 

 of this easy explanation of the man-eater as he 

 is to-day, all sorts of theories have been sug- 

 gested to account for him. The least fantastic 

 of these is that man-eaters are aged animals, 

 too slow and too feeble to hunt swifter or 

 stronger game, no longer able to catch black- 

 buck or to pull down a sambur, and therefore, 

 in their hunger and extremity, forced to prey 

 on the unarmed ryots and woodmen of the 

 jungle. There is no doubt that, with wild 

 animals as with tame (man included), oppor- 

 tunity sometimes makes the thief, and the 

 sight of these inoffensive peasants passing and 

 repassing his lair might, we may easily im- 

 agine, put the idea of eating one into a hungry 

 tiger's head. There are, however, one or two 



