86 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



three inches, and was killed in Eastern Bengal. Both were 

 measured while warm with a tape from tip of nose to tip of 

 tail, over the head, between the ears, and along the spine, the 

 tail pulled out stiffly to obtain its full length. In the case of 

 tigers, ten feet three inches (killed in the Goalpara district) 

 is the largest after the above ; several of ten feet and an 

 inch or two; while of panthers, eight feet was the next 

 largest in size, many about seven feet and a half, but far 

 more between the last dimensions and seven feet. 



So far then as is proved by my own experience, lusty, 

 full-grown tigers in Bengal and Assam are usually a trifle 

 under ten feet ; but when the tails are shorter than ordinary, 

 they rarely attain nine feet nine inches in length, fairly 

 measured while warm. 



Then, again, some writers insist upon man-eaters being, as 

 a rule, gaunt and mangy, as if their food disagreed with them 

 (as we may well wish it might do), or that their consciences 

 pricked them and interfered with their digestion. Long 

 experience will not support this poetical idea of the anthro- 

 pophagi, and the retribution which follows their misdeeds, 

 since some have been among the stoutest and sleekest tigers 

 shot by me. Of course, an old animal, weak and diseased, 

 may from sheer necessity infest the paths and watering-places 

 of a village, and carry off therefrom men, women, and 

 children. Such an one, haunted, about the year 1864, some 

 places in the Raipoor police-station jurisdiction, now in the 

 Bankurah, and formerly in the Manbhoom district, killing, as 

 her custom was, women and children solely, and eating only 

 the softest portions of the bodies. She might have been 

 destroyed easily, and I was most anxious to secure her, but 

 was prevented from so doing by my duties removing me to a 

 distant province. Ultimately she was killed by a " Shikaree " 

 and her head was shown me long afterwards. Looking at 

 that skull from a little distance, one might have been dis- 

 posed at the first glance to call it that of an old bear, but 

 closer examination proved it to be that of an extremely aged 

 tigress. The skull was much depressed and elongated, and 



