66 FELIDiE. 



wolf-legends of Europe may be found repeated and intensified in 

 connection with the Indian tiger. Foremost among these tales is 

 of course the wehr-wolf superstition — a belief that certain men 

 have the magical power to transmute themselves at will into wild 

 beasts. But the most remarkable of all is the creed, universal in 

 the Central Provinces and generally prevalent, I believe, throughout 

 India, that the spirits of those men who have been killed by a 

 tiger attend him and sit upon his head, and that they not only w arn 

 him against danger, but, entertaining malice against their fellow- 

 men, aid him to destroy them. This superstition exists amongst 

 many races. 



Tigers or representations of tigers are actual objects of adoration, 

 or, to speak more correctly, propitiation, amongst some of the 

 wilder tribes of the Indian Peninsula ; and one form of oath in 

 Courts of Justice is, or was formerly, administered on a tiger's skin. 

 Various parts of the animal, such as the front teeth, the claws, the 

 whiskers, and the rudimentary clavicles (birnuJch), are preserved as 

 amulets and charms. The whiskei's, Jerdon says, in some parts of 

 Southern India are considered to endow the fortunate possessor 

 with unlimited power over the opposite sex. In other parts they 

 are regarded as a deadly poison, and are destroyed as soon as a 

 tiger is killed. 



To one peculiar and wide-spread myth, the relations between 

 tigers or lions and jackals, some reference will be found under the 

 head of the latter. 



The destruction of so dangerous an anin)al as the tiger is natu- 

 rally one of the principal objects both of the native shiktiri, who 

 kills for the reward given by Government, and varying from Es. 5 

 to Rs. 50 in different districts, and of the European sportsman. 

 The common native plan, adopted occasionally by Europeans, is to 

 build a platform, or machcii), in a tree, either close to the carcase 

 of an animal that has been killed by a tiger, or to a spot where a 

 live animal, usually a bullock or young buffalo, is tied up as a bait, 

 and to shoot the tiger when he comes to feed on the carcase or to 

 seize the bullock. Another system, adopted by Europeans from 

 Indian chiefs, is to drive the jungles with a line of elephants, the 

 sportsmen shooting from howdahs. This is often almost the only 

 practicable plan in the great plains of Bengal and Upper India, 

 which are covered with grass from 8 to 20 feet high. 



In the smaller jungle-patches of Central and Southern India, 

 tiger-shooting is chiefly attempted in the hot season, and the tiger 

 is either driven by beaters past a tree on which the sportsman sits, 

 or followed up, either on an elephant or on foot. Baits, usually 

 young buffaloes, are tied out in selc^cted spots, in order to induce 

 the tiger to kill, and remain during the heat of the day in places 

 convenient for finding him ; and native trackers, many of whom 

 could probably vie with the far-famed American Indians them- 

 selves, are employed to follow up the animal and ascertain where 

 it is lying. A full account of this method is given by Forsyth in 

 the ' Highlands of Central India.' Occasionally, especially when a 



