254 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



The regular game-killing tiger is retired in his habits, living 

 chiefly among the hills, retreating readily from man, and is alto- 

 gether a very innocuous animal, if not even positively beneficial 

 in keeping down the herds of deer and nilgai that prey upon 

 the crops. His hot- weather haunt is usually some rocky ravine 

 among the hills, where pools of water remain, and shelving 

 rocks or overhanging trees afford him shelter from the sun. 

 He is a light-made beast (called by shikdxis a lodhia bdgh), 

 very active and endurhig, and, from this as well as his shy- 

 ness, generally difficult to bring to bag. 



The cattle-lifter, again, is usually an older and heavier 

 animal (called oontia bdgh, from his faintly striped coat re- 

 sembling the colour of a camel), very fleshy, and indisposed 

 to severe exertion. In the cool season he follows the herds of 

 cattle wherever they go to graze ; and then, no doubt, in the 

 long damp grass brings many a head of game also to bag. In 

 the hot weather, however, the openness of the forest and the 

 numerous fallen leaves preclude *a lazy monster of this sort 

 from getting at game ; and he then locates himself in some 

 strong cover, close to water, and in the neighbourhood of 

 where the cattle are taken to drink and graze about on the 

 greener herbage then found by the sides of streams, and, 

 watching his opportunity, kills a bullock as he requires it, 

 and drags it into his cover. Of course a good many head of 

 game are also killed by such a tiger when they come to drink, 

 but so long as he can easily procure cattle he does not trouble 

 himself to hunt for them. 



Native shikans recognize more or less two kinds of tigers, with 

 the names I have given above. It may be matter for specu- 

 lation which is cause, and which is effect. Is it that as tigers 

 grow old and heavy they take to the easier life of cattle-lift- 

 ing ? Or has the difference of their pursuits, continued for 



