THE TIGER 



exclusively upon game, take to cattle killing. 

 Others, again, seem to prey chiefly upon cattle, 

 but the careers of such are usually cut short ere 

 they have enjoyed an almost exclusive diet of 

 beef for any lengthened period. 



Man-eating tigers are nowadays extremely rare. 

 During many years spent in Mysore, I can person- 

 ally vouch for only one isolated instance, and this a 

 curious one, for, though the tiger was not killed, 

 and though I remained in the district for some 

 months after the first and, so far as I know for 

 certain, the only murder of a human being com- 

 mitted by the beast, he appeared to be satisfied 

 with the one experiment. 



As a rule, a tiger which has tasted human flesh, 

 and has found how very easy a victim the formerly 

 dreaded man is, continues man-killing combined, 

 of course, with cattle, and possibly at a pinch even 

 game-eating and becomes a terrible scourge to the 

 villagers whose daily work takes them into the 

 jungles frequented by him. In the case mentioned 

 above, the tiger killed a herd-boy, who, with another 

 youngster, was driving the cattle home in the even- 

 ing. The latter, frightened nearly out of his senses, 

 when upon hearing a shout of " Brother ! brother ! " 

 he turned, and saw the tiger holding his victim in 

 his mouth, fled incontinently to the village as also 

 did the cattle. Next day the villagers went out in 

 force to the scene of the murder, and there they 

 found the boy's black blanket, his shank bones, one 

 arm bone, and the skull with the flesh of the face 

 eaten off it. 



101 



