MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 52§ 



up in a standing position. The buffalo remained standing for several seconds, 

 then fell over, and in so doing broke his own neck. I feel sure in many cases 

 the animal's neck is broken in this way, by the fall of his own body, his neck 

 being fixed rigidly to the ground. On other occasions the tiger stalks up and 

 lies down concealed watching his prey for some minutes, then stands up 

 slowly and charges in at the gallop, rearing up on his hind legs and putting 

 one paw on the head or nose of the victim and the other on his shoulder 

 takes a mouthful of neck and bears him to the ground. 



Both methods are quite common, and which has been employed can be told 

 from the marks on the victim and the prints on the sand. 



Sometimes the tiger plays with his victim, but as the only occasion on which 

 I witnessed this performance the tiger was not allowed to kill : the story can 

 add nothing to our knowledge of how he kills. It may be interesting to add 

 that when a tiger comes on a live buffalo suddenly, he generally gives 

 a " whoof " and bolts. I can only explain this by his associating buffaloes 

 with the presence of man. 



The tiger sometimes kills his prey by a smashing blow on the head with his 

 paw, but the only occasions on which I have known this done have been when 

 the tiger did not intend to eat and had killed for pure devilment, on such 

 occasions, when he has killed several buffaloes on one night, or has come along 

 a path, given the buffalo a pat and walked right off, never intending to stay in 

 the place. The abova refers to animate which have been tied up and which 

 the tiger can make tolerably sure of killing, and the circumstances are therefore 

 different from those in which wild game is killed. In the latter case the prey 

 is often moving, sometimes at full gallop and the tiger also is in rapid motion, 

 claws therefore enter more into his scheme of attack in such cases than they 

 do in the case of buffaloes, nevertheless I witnessed a tiger pull down a young 

 swamp deer by the throat without using any claw. In the majority of cases, 

 however, in " natural " kills the claws are used and it is not uncommon to 

 shoot animals which have the long tearing claw marks of a tiger on them. 

 On one occasion I shot a nilgai with two such brands on his rump and a large 

 piece of meat torn out of his round. One can picture the mighty rush and 

 the nilgai's great strength tearing out the hold. Tigers in concert will attack 

 and hamstring bison, but this is exceptional. I have also noticed the un- 

 businesslike method several tigers have of killing their prey compared with a 

 single animal, of which Mr. Selous makes mention as regards lions. I think 

 this is due possibly to two causes. Firstly that several animals hunt their prey 

 rather than trust to a stealthy stalk and a sudden surprise and attack 

 and also that they may be conscious the animal cannot escape. This description 

 also as regards the method in which lions drag their kill only requires to 

 have the word tiger substituted for lion to make it an exact description of 

 the tiger's method. 



Perak is a long way from the Central Provinces and the conditions there 

 are very different ; in differing somewhat therefore from Mr. F. 0. B. Dennys 

 as regards the habits of the tiger, it is quite possible that these habits are 



