CHAPTER VII 



A rare chance — A bull bison and a tiger — Hopes of a record — " Right and 

 left " — Beating on spec — The bull bison viewed — Changing my rifle 

 — About to puU the trigger — The tiger appears on the scene — An 

 unparalleled situation — A chance of making history — Another change 

 of rifles — Fatal hesitation — The tiger alarmed — Making oS at a gallop 

 — A difficult shot — The record unachieved — The tigress shot — The 

 light rifle scores for once — Another tiger killed — Evidence in favour 

 of the heavier weapon — Experience gained as tiger slayer — Some 

 remarks on tigers — Varieties of the species — Hot and cold weather 

 coats — Colour a sign of age — Muscular development — " Lucky bones " 

 — Cattle-killing and hill tigers — Difference in weight and size — Length 

 of tigers — Methods of measurement — Age difficult to determine — 

 How a tiger kills its prey — Manner of eating — Not necessarily nocturnal 

 in its habits — An example — The tiger's attack — Wounds generally 

 fatal — Time of breeding — Number of cubs produced — Devouring their 

 young — Feeding the cubs — Cubs as pets — Tiger fat and rheumatism 

 — ^Milk of tigress as medicine — Adventures of a sample — Legends 

 and superstitions — -A curiosity' in tigers — Declared a new species — 

 The mystery solved — Disillusion. 



It was seldom, even in the India of thirty years ago — a 

 period when its jungles were swarming with big game — 

 that a sportsman had the luck to find himself simultaneously 

 confronted with two such noble quarry as a bull bison and 

 a tiger ! Yet such was the rare, though somewhat em- 

 barrassing, situation I was placed in one evening when 

 out shooting near my camp. 



I was returning home after a fruitless search for bison 

 accompanied by my henchman Bapu, when we came 

 across his co-tracker Etoo, and the remainder of the 

 men, who had been in a different direction, also looking 

 for tracks. They informed us that they had come on 

 the fresh pugs * of a tiger early in the morning and had 

 followed them to the edge of a hill where, the ground being 

 hard and stony, they had lost them. 



* Footprints. 

 44 



