228 TYPES OF AXniAL LIFE 



say, porcupines, which one would think would be rather 

 awkward mouthfuls. They also sometimes kill and eat 

 bears and young gaurs and buffaloes, although such wild 

 cattle, if adult, are more than a match for the tiger. 

 When hard pressed during inundations they will eat fish, 

 tortoises, lizards, frogs, and even locusts. They kill great 

 numbers of domestic animals, and sometimes live entirely 

 on cattle, and they have a distinct preference for beef 

 over mutton. The tiger appears ordinarily to kill cattle 

 by clutching the forequarters with its paws and then 

 seizing the throat in his jaws from underneath and forcing- 

 it upward and backward until the neck is dislocated. 

 The enormous muscular power of the tiger is shown by 

 the way in which it can transport large carcases of oxen 

 over rough ground, sometimes lifting the body completely 

 off the surface. A very hungry one will devour two 

 hindquartei's in one night, but generally remains three 

 or four days near the carcass, feeding at intervals. A 

 tigress with cubs is often very destructive, partly, it is 

 said, in order to teach the young tigers to kill their own 

 prey. Though they usually do so kill, they do not 

 disdain carrion. Cases are even recorded of a shot tiger 

 being devoured by another of its own species. 



The ordinary cattle-eating tiger is a great coward in 

 the presence of man, and often allows himself to be 

 pelted ofi^ The man-eating tigers are those w^hich have 

 got fat and heavy, or, being disabled from age or injury, 

 find man an easy prey ; and when once they have got 

 over their innate fear of the human species such a tiger 

 may become a fearful scourge. Thus, in Lower Bengal 

 alone 4218 persons were killed by them between i860 

 and 1866. In Bengal and Upper India tigers are hunted 

 on elephants, the sportsmen shooting from howdahs. In 

 Central and Southern India tiger shooting is chiefly 



