THE TIGER. 233 



Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 



Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage : 



Then lend the eye a terrible aspect : 



Let it pry through the portage of the head, 



Like the brass cannon ; let the brow o'erwhelni it, 



As fearfully, as doth a galled rock 



O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, 



Swill'd with the wide and wasteful ocean. 



Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide ; 



Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 



To his full height!" 



(K. Henry V. Act. III. Sc. 1.)* 



The tiger generally lies in ambush for his prey. Captain 

 Williamson observes, that a large proportion of the soil of India 

 is of a reddish hue, and the grass during the summer heats 

 being dried up, assumes a colour so similar to the brighter 

 parts of the tiger's skin, that this animal is often roused where 

 there does not exist any cover adequate to sheltering half its 

 bulk the colour of the surrounding objects so perfectly corre- 

 sponding with its own as to conceal the danger. 



Uttering a loud roar, the tiger springs suddenly upon his 

 victim with astonishing rapidity, and sometimes at a single 

 bound or leap of almost incredible extent. He will not hesitate 

 to swim across a river when he perceives a tempting quarry 

 on the opposite bank. 



" The tiger's fore-paw is the invariable engine of destruction. 



* The idea of imitating the ferocious gesture of the tiger was perhaps 

 borrowed by Shakespeare ; for at an earlier period than that of Henry V., it was 

 the custom of men preparing for fight to endeavour to assume the forbidding 

 appearance and ferocity of particular animals. " The ancient pirates used to 

 work themselves literally into a state of bestial ferocity. Those who were 

 subject to these paroxysms were called Berserkir : they studied to resemble 

 wild beasts ; they excited themselves to a strength which has been compared 

 to that of bears; and this unnatural power was succeeded, as we may well 

 suppose, by corresponding debility. In the French and Italian romances, we 

 frequently find a warrior endowed, for a part of a day, with a double or treble 

 share of strength ; and it is not improbable that the fiction may have been 

 derived from this species of phrenzy. Bartholinus tells us that Odin's soldiers 

 went to battle without armour, biting their shields, raging like wolves or dogs : 

 like bears or bulls in strength ; they slaughtered their foes, and were them- 

 selves invulnerable to fire and sword." Historical Parallels (1831), p. 11, 12. 



