308 MAX AND THE TIGEH. 



angling his skill and dexterity are not unworthy of an Izaak Walton. 

 He is the "complete angler" of the carnivorous world! He swims 

 admirably, and in pursuit of his prey never hesitates at the most 

 tremendous "header," so that the Arnee Buffaloes, which traverse 

 immense distances by yielding themselves to the swift river-currents, 

 have more cause to dread his attacks than those of the crocodiles 



Buffon has calumniated the tiger by accusing him of cowardice, 

 while, as we have seen, he has not less grossly flattered the lion by 

 representing him as the perfect type of intrepidity. During the day 

 the tiger, after having supped freely, sleeps in his den ; he avoids 

 man, and when aroused by the hunters, his first movement is one of 

 flight. But by night or day, if he be an hungered, no obstacle 

 arrests, no peril daunts him ; and he pounces upon man as he would 

 upon any other prey. He penetrates into isolated habitations ; 

 breaks into the villages, and sometimes even into the towns ; seizes 

 the domestic animals in their very stables ; men even within the 

 shelter of their own houses ; and sometimes devours his spoil upon 

 the spot ; sometimes, if he fears pursuit, drags it off to his secret lair. 



At Goa, in a butcher's stall, was slain a tiger which had fallen 

 asleep there after gorging himself with food ; and in the vicinity of 

 that once famous, but now degraded city, a cross marks the spot where 

 a Portuguese officer, marching at the head of his men, was seized 

 before their eyes by a tiger, and carried off before they could make 

 the slightest effort to save him. 



Tigers are found in India, in the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, at 

 Borneo, at Java, and at Sumatra. Civilization has hunted them out 

 of the Celestial Empire, but they are met with in Tartary, even in 

 extremely cold latitudes. The tigers of the North a beneficent 

 Nature has furnished with much longer hair than their congeners of 

 the Tropical zone, and they seem to form a distinct variety of the 

 species. Wherever -the tiger exists, war d I'outrance is declared 

 between man and him ! It is a vendetta which has been handed 

 down from the remotest antiquity, and is as bitter now as in 

 any past generation. Every year hundreds of persons fall victims to 



