619 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



No. 1.— TIGER TAKING OFF CARCASE OF SLOTH BEAR 



{MELURSUS URSINUS). 



When shooting in the Central Provinces in 1911, I was told by the 

 shikari in a certain village that a year before a Sahib had shot a Sloth 

 Bear in the jungle ; but when the villagers went to bring in the body, 

 it had been dragged off and partially devoured by a tiger {Felis tigris). 



C. R. PITMAN. 

 Deea Ismail Khan, 7th August 1913. 



[There have been several accounts in the Jonrnal of tigers killing and eating 

 Sloth Bears.— Eds.] 



No. II.— A PORCUPINE-TIGER TRAGEDY. 



I was in camp in the Nizam's Dominions two hot weathers ago with Mr. 

 Mackenzie, Chief Engineer, when one morning a " Gond" trotted in to say 

 there was a dead tiger lying in his field, done to death by a porcupine ! I 

 galloped out at once to the village, about 8 miles, and was conducted by the 

 villagers to the site of the tragedy. In a field as bare as one's hand lay 

 peacefully dead on his side an almost full-grown well-conditioned tiger, 

 with five large porcupine-quills stuck in his chest, like hatpins in a pin 

 cushion. One hundred and twenty-eight paces distant were the remains 

 of a large porcupine : only quills unfortunately, the body had been roasted 

 and eaten before I could get there ! But I was convinced after careful 

 enquiry that practically the whole carcase had been found intact, minus 

 one mouthful bitten out by the tiger. It was late evening before I got the 

 dead tiger into camp, where we made a careful post-mortem examination, 

 regretting the absence of a doctor, capable of making a correct diagnosis 

 of the cause of death. We found the pericardium bruised and discoloured, 

 bat as far as we could see the heart had not been penetrated by the quills, 

 and was in a normal condition. On the other hand the liver and lungs 

 were in shreds and looked like a black sponge in fragments. Outwardly 

 the body was in excellent condition. It is not uncommon to find bits of 

 quills in tiger's f orepaws, pointing to the probability of their usually render- 

 ing porcupines harmless first with their paws, before going into them. We 

 concluded that in this case, the tiger, being young and inexperienced, had 

 jumped at the porcupine, and the large dorsal quills had driven with the 

 impact into his chest. We found no bits of quills inside him, although the 

 discoloured and disintegrated condition of his internal economy appeared 

 to point to the probability of his having swallowed something fatal. 



What was the cause of death ? Perhaps some doctor-shikari will en- 

 lighten us. I have heard of tigers having been shot in an emaciated 

 condition, and bits of quills having been found inside them ; biit this tiger 

 was in splendid condition and certainly died very suddenly, because, 

 firstly, he had left the kill practically uneaten ; secondly, he had been able 

 to run only one hundred and twenty-eight paces before death overtook 

 him ; and, thirdly, the fact of his having died in a bare field proved a 

 sudden end, because, on the approach of death, if there is time, such 

 animals invariably reach cover to die in. 



G. E. C. WAKEFIELD. 



Hyderabad, Deccan, B\st August 1913. 

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