How Animals Talk 



armed natives, who had no desire to meet a tiger, 

 were frequently seeing the brutes in regions where 

 he hunted for them in vain. As an experiment 

 he left his rifle at home for a few months; he 

 practised slipping quietly through the jungle with- 

 out physical or mental excitement, as the natives 

 go, and presently he, too, began to meet tigers. 

 In one district he came close to four in as many 

 months, and every one acted in the same half- 

 astonished, half-inquisitive way. Then, thinking 

 he understood his game, he began to carry his 

 rifle again, and had what he called excellent luck. 

 The beautiful tiger skins he showed me were a 

 proof of it. 



To me this man was a rare curiosity, being the 

 only Indian or African hunter I ever met who went 

 into the jungle alone, man fashion, and who did 

 not depend on unarmed natives or beaters or 

 trackers for finding his game. His excellent " luck " 

 was, as I judge, simply a realization of the fact 

 that human excitement may carry far in the still 

 woods, and be quite as disturbing, as the man-scent 

 or the report of a rifle. 



Does all this sound strange or incredible to you, 

 like a chapter from a dream-book? However it 

 may sound, it is the crystallized conviction result- 

 ing from years of intimate observation of wild 

 beasts in their native woods ; and if you consider 



