44 CATALOGUE. 



In the catalogue of Mammalia observed in Dukhun, Colonel Sykes 

 states (p. 8), " Royal Tigers are so numerous in the province of Khan- 

 deish, that 1,032 were killed from the .years 1825 to 1829 inclusive, as 

 appears by official returns handed to me." They are equally nume- 

 rous and destructive on the West coast of Sumatra, and in many parts 

 of Java. In the " Tower Menagerie," p. 25 to 34, Mr. J. E. Bennett 

 gives many interesting details of the history and habits of the Royal 

 Tiger. The peculiarities of the Tiger, as observed in Java, are de^ 

 tailed by Dr. S, Miiller (Over de Zoogdieren van den Ind. Archip. 

 p. 52, &c.) f 



Walter Elliot, Esq., in the catalogue of Mammalia in the Southern 

 Mahratta country, gives the following particulars relative to the habits 

 of the Tiger (Madras Journ. of Literature and Science, vol. X. p. 105). 

 " The female has from two to four young, and does not breed at any 

 particular season. Their chief prey is cattle, but they also catch the, 

 wild hog, the sambar* and more rarely the spotted deer.-\ It is natu- 

 rally a cowardly animal, and always retreats from opposition until 

 wounded or provoked. Several instances came to notice of its being 

 compelled to relinquish its prey, by the cattle in a body driving it off. 

 In one case, an official report was made of a herd of buffaloes rushing 

 on a tiger that had seized the herd-boy, and forcing it to drop him. 

 Its retiring from the wild dog has already been adverted to. Though 

 the wild hog often becomes its prey, it sometimes falls a victim to the 

 successful resistance of the wild boar. I once found a full-grown tiger 

 newly killed, evidently by the rip of a boar's tusk ; and two similar 

 instances were related to me by gentlemen who had witnessed them, 

 one of a tiger, the other of a panther. It is generally believed that a 

 tiger always kills his own food, and will not eat carrion. I met with 

 one instance of a tigress and two full-grown cubs devouring a bullock 

 that had died of disease. I saw the carcass in the evening, and next 

 day, on the report of tigers having been heard in the night, I followed 

 their track, and found they had dragged the dead animal into the centre 

 of a corn-field, and picked the bones quite clean ; after which, they 

 found a buffalo, killed it, and eat only a small portion of it. Another 

 instance was related in a letter from a celebrated sportsman in Kan- 

 deish, who having killed a tigress, on his return to his tents, sent a pad 

 elephant to bring it home. The messenger returned, reporting that on 

 his arrival he found her alive. They went out next morning to the 



Rasa Hippelaphus. f Axis maculata. 



