1 66 AMALGAMATION OK COLOUR WITH SURROUNDING OBJECTS. 



pression in their faces. I have in this way interviewed over 

 fifty tigers. It is extraordinary how difficult it is to distin- 

 guish a tiger either in the open or in the jungle ; on looking 

 at the skin with its large black stripes on a yellowish 

 red body, with the pure white on the face, breast, and 

 Hanks, one would imagine there would be no difficulty in 

 seeing it anywhere, but it is not so. The tawny colour so 

 corresponds or rather amalgamates with the dry grass and 

 leaves, and the stripes with the black shadows of the trees and 

 bushes, that the animal becomes almost invisible. I once 

 wounded a tiger that did not fall dead on the spot, and con- 

 trary to my usual custom I followed him, a most dangerous 

 proceeding when shooting a tiger on foot. I had two keen- 

 sighted natives with me. Presently we came to a spot 

 where the jungle was rather open, with a few small trees 

 and bushes scattered about, and dry grass a few inches high ; 

 the sun was shining brightly, casting the black shadows of 

 the trees across the withered grass, and we stood at the 

 edge of this open space for some minutes, straining our 

 eyes to ascertain where the tiger had gone, suddenly one of 

 the men said, "he dead," and there not more than ten or 

 twelve yards from us lay the tiger stretched on the grass, stone 

 dead, but his black stripes and yellow body so exactly corres- 

 ponded with the black shadows and yellow grass, that none of 

 us could at first make him out. Even in the open, at a few 

 hundred yards distant, not a stripe can be distinguished on 

 a tiger's body, and I have more than once mistaken one 

 for a deer. 



The tiger when out prowling for food is often accom- 

 panied by a single jackal, and when this is the case the jackal 

 has a most peculiar cry or rather howl, and whenever that 



