TIGERS. 99 



cent tree, in order to " crane" over the top of the slope, and 

 saw the tiger lying on the ground, apparently dead, about 

 fifteen yards off. A shot having no effect, I descended, 

 and, preceded by volleys of stones, we advanced and 

 found the brute quite dead. The spherical bullet had 

 entered exactly at the spot aimed at, and, traversing the 

 lungs, had come' out just behind the off shoulder. It was 

 a handsomely marked tigress, but, thinking the orthodox 

 measurement too small (it was probably about 7ft. 9in.), 

 it was not recorded in the diary ; the skin is entered as 

 being 9ft. 5in. long, and no doubt it was well stretched to 

 give this ; but then it was my first tiger. She had two 

 old bullet wounds in the neck, which had passed clean 

 through, but missed the spine. One day a Brinjarry 

 (called " Lombani " in Mysore) brought in news of three 

 kills near a place named Attagherry, some three miles 

 lower down the hills ; we collected five guns, and some 

 beaters with dogs, and found the tiger had killed at the 

 upper end of a long shady nullah. Patterson was posted 

 at the lower end in the nullah, the remaining four rifles 

 "being placed at intervals on both banks towards the gara. 

 Edward Hall, who was posted at the upper end, near the 

 kill, fired at and wounded the tiger at the commencement 

 of the beat ; it then, without speaking to the shot, 

 charged down the nullah, and mysteriously disappeared. 

 I was posted at the lower end, within fifty yards of 

 Patterson, in a sandal-wood tree, and when the beaters 

 arrived got down out of my tree, and, was crossing through 

 the nullah, when some of the dogs with me began to 

 bark in a small clump of bushes between me and Patterson, 

 who at once shouted out, " Get out of the nullah; the 

 tiger is within a yard of you." I lost no time in climbing 



up the bank, the dogs continuing to bark in the harsh 



H 2 



