THE TIGER. 159 



peculiar individuality so strongly marked, that it must be separately matched by the 

 hunter's skill. 



Of the ordinary Tiger-hunt, or rather Tiger-mobbing, with its posse comitatus of 

 elephants, horses, dogs, and men, no description will be given, as the subject has been 

 rendered so familiar by many illustrated publications which have issued from the press 

 in late years ; and the space which would be required for a detailed narration of such 

 scenes may be better employed in describing those portions of the Tiger's character 

 which are not so popularly known. 



When the Tiger strikes down and kills a large animal, such as an ox, he tears open 

 the throat of his prey, and eagerly laps the blood as it streams hotly from the wound. 

 Having solaced his appetite by this preliminary indulgence, he drags it to some place 

 of concealment, where he watches over it until the evening, and makes up his mind 

 for a prolonged banquet. Beginning at the hinder quarters, he eats his way gradually 

 towards the head, occasionally moistening his sanguine feast by a draught of water 

 from a neighboring stream, but never ceasing from his gluttonous repast until he has 

 so entirely gorged himself that he is incapable of taking another mouthful. He is in 

 no way choice of palate, but eats everything as it comes, even to the skin and the very 

 bones themselves. He now yields himself to sleep, and for three days lies in a semi- 

 torpid state, never moving except to drink, and calmly enjoying the double happiness 

 of a powerful appetite and a good digestion. After the three days have passed, he is 

 ready for another feast, and returning to his prey, again gorges himself on the remains, 

 caring little whether the taint of corruption has come upon them, and only desirous to 

 assimilate as much animal matter as possible in a limited time. 



Knowing the habits of the Tiger, the herdsman who has suffered the loss of one of 

 his oxen takes his revenge by watching the marauder to his lair, waiting until the 

 repleted animal has retired either to drink, or for his long sleep. He then rubs some 

 arsenic into a few gashes which he cuts upon the hinder quarters of the stolen ox, and 

 leaves the poison to do its work. In due time the Tiger returns to his prey, tears off 

 and swallows the deadly food, and on feeling the burning agony caused by this most 

 irritant of poisons, runs to the water-side, where he endeavors in vain, by repeated 

 draughts of the cool stream, to quench the fire that consumes him. But a few hours 

 now elapse before he lies dead by the water-side. 



It would have been well for one cattle proprietor if he had adopted this safe expedient 

 of destroying the animal that had robbed him. 



Preferring the excitement of shooting the Tiger, he lay in wait for the beast as it 

 returned to the deadoxfor its second banquet, and fired at the marauder with uncertain 

 aim, only frightening instead of destroying it. The Tiger was so alarmed at the report 

 of the gun, that it would not run the risk of a similar danger, and yet was so fond of 

 beef, that it could not refrain from attacking the herds. So it compromised the matter 

 by making only a single meal on every ox which it killed, and was so fearful of ex- 

 posing itself to peril, that it would only drink the blood of the slaughtered ox, and 

 never return to it a second time. The consequence of this manoeuvre was, that the 

 Tiger used to kill two or three oxen at a time, merely for the purpose of drinking their 

 blood. 



The destruction of the Indian Tiger might be more complete were nt>t the animal 

 protected in various ways. 



Religious principles take the chief ground, and, as is generally the case in India, 

 choose the wrong side of the question. Many sects of that strange, polytheistic my- 

 thology, deem the Tiger to be a sacred animal, simply because it is so destructive and 

 so dangerous, and will not suffer it to be killed unless it is one of the " man-eaters"- 

 whose propensities have already been mentioned. 



Private predilections take second rank in this matter, and cause many a Tiger to 

 roam unmolested, to the destruction of human and animal life, whose career might 

 easily have been arrested, did not the willsof an imperious ruler decree that the 

 destructive animal should be at liberty to depopulate the country until such time as it 

 pleased the self-willed autocrat to amuse a heavy hour by giving chase to the animal. 



There are, in fact, some native chiefs and, until later days, there were many more 



