DESTRUCTIVENESS OF TIGERS 



53 



quantity of food available. Where cattle abound they are 

 very destructive. I have known one tiger to kill five bullocks 

 off the reel, to drag them into the dense bush where vultures 

 would not get a sight of them, and there to leave them and 

 partake of them when he was so disposed. If anything, I 

 think they prefer their game high. I read when a boy that a 



TIGER SKIN. 



tiger never condescended to partake of anything not killed by 

 himself, but there cannot be a greater fallacy; they drag away 

 and eat the cattle that have died of murrain, and which are 

 thrown to a distance from the village. There is not a surer 

 bait than a buffalo or a gaur or even an elephant or rhinoceros 

 that has been shot and left ; but generally he won't go for 

 them until putrefaction has well set in. I heard of one officer 

 who had shot three tigers one night by sitting up over the 



