386 CARNIVORES. 
with a platform of heavy stones, that falls upon and crushes the tiger, after the 
manner of the brick or tile trap used by gardeners in this country to kill field- 
mice. In some of the older works relating to the tiger there will be found cir- 
cumstantial accounts of a method of capturing the animal by smearing leaves with 
bird-lime, which adheres to its face and paws, and thus renders it completely blind 
and helpless; but Sir J. Fayrer states that he is unaware of any authenticated 
instance where this method has been put in practice. 
No account of the tiger would be complete without some reference to the 
modes of hunting or shooting adopted by Europeans and many of the native chiefs 
and shikaris, but as all these are fully described in works more especially devoted 
to sport, such reference will be of the briefest. One plan, especially favoured by 
the native shikari, who is less impatient of a solitary night watch than most 
Europeans, is to build a platform or machan in a tree near the “ kill,’ from which 
the tiger may be shot on his return visit, a variation of this plan being to 
construct the machan in any likely spot, and to tie up a goat, cow, or buffalo as a 
bait. The uncertain light prevailing at the time of the tiger's visit renders 
shooting from these machans far from certain. Throughout a large portion of 
Bengal, the North-West Provinces, Central India, and the Terai-land at the foot of 
the Himalaya, where tigers are generally found in swamps and grass-jungle,—the 
grass in the latter being often from eight to ten feet in height,—the common, and 
indeed often the only practicable plan, is to beat the jungles with lines of 
elephants; the sportsmen either shooting from their howdahs, or from machans 
placed in trees in positions commanding the ways along which the tiger is 
likely to bolt. In other districts, and more especially in parts of Bombay and 
Madras, tiger-shooting is often undertaken on foot. And, as Sir J. Fayrer observes, 
it is in this dangerous sport that fatal and serious accidents are likely to happen, 
for no accuracy of-aim or steadiness of nerve can always guard against or prevent 
the rush of even a mortally wounded tiger, that in its very death-throes may 
inflict a dangerous or fatal injury. 
Stories of hair-breadth escapes from tigers, both when shooting on foot and 
from the howdah, might be collected almost by the hundred, but would be foreign 
to our purpose. We may, however, mention that in many parts of India the 
tiger is regarded by the natives with a superstitious awe, which prevents them 
from killing it, even when they have the power. As might be expected, this 
awe is more developed among the superstitious Hindus than among the Moham- 
medans. In all cases, however, it appears that the natives have no objection to 
the slaughter of the tiger by Europeans. Frequently the tiger is regarded as 
tenanted by a spirit rendering it immortal; and in many districts the animal is 
never mentioned by its proper name, sher or bagh, but invariably by some 
euphemism. Closely connected with this superstition is the avidity with which 
the claws, whiskers, front teeth, and the imperfect collar-bones of the tiger are 
collected and preserved as charms by the natives of many districts; although, 
by others they are held as deadly poisons, and are destroyed as soon as possible. 
For these reasons a tiger-skin with the whiskers preserved is a rarity. 
