MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 539 



up could not be discovered. Sitting up for him from 4 p.m. to dark was 

 quite useless. He never came then. He seemed to do all his feeding (if not 

 his killing) about daybreak, being seen twice or thrice about that time and 

 never at any other part of the day. Finally, he was stalked and shot over 

 a kill at dawn — as above stated. 



The next animal of this kind was the tiger above-mentioned that tried 

 to stop the mail. He occupied the same ground as the panther, but a 

 greater extent to the west : something like 16 miles east and west by six or 

 seven north and south. He shifted his ground at intervals— perhaps throe 

 or four miles in three or four days ; just getting out of the way of a beat, 

 after a human kill, but not (so far as I could learn) going any distance. He 

 was got in a beat after killing a buffalo, with only about 30 beaters. It is 

 clear that they did their: work well. He turned out to be a very powerful and 

 handsome male, rather young, with a beautiful coat, teeth and claws perfect. 

 He was shot in January. 



When dissected there were no rings found, nor any substance that would 

 convict him: it was only by a. careful comparison of places, dates and distances 

 that it became evident that he was doing part of the man-killing in the- 

 district. The most conclusive bit of evidence was the fact that there had 

 been two distinct areas of kills, from 7 to 10 miles apart, and after the death 

 of this tiger there was no human kill reported on that ground. Before he 

 was shot they had occurred with some regularity, but not very often.. 

 Both before and after he was killed, human kills continued to occur at 

 intervals in the other (western) area. Perhaps this tiger killed a dozen 

 people. I belive he was a cub of the old tigress, the principal district man- 

 eater, and learnt to kill human beings when with her. 



It is certainly good policy to examine every tiger or panther killed, on the 

 chance of its being a man-eater and containing some evidence of the fact.. 

 But it is very seldom that anything of the sort will be found, except within. 

 12 hours after an animal has fed off a human kill. The finger nails or pieces. 

 of bone are likely to be found. An old shikari, who has been present at the 

 examination of many tigers, several of which were man-eaters, says he never 

 found anything of the kind. The old tigress above-named was said to make 

 a practice of removing not only the hair, but the clothes and ornaments of 

 the people she killed, before eating them, and it is said that other man-eaters, 

 have been noticed as doing the same. 



The next was the local celebrity — an oldish tigress that had been known to 

 the police and the Sirkar generally for four years. 



She occupied the western of the two stretches of ground referred to, her 

 centre being 20 or 25 miles to the west of that of the male tiger last-named. 

 She killed on an average two men a month, usually ceasing to kill for a time 

 about the end of the hot weather, or beginning of the rains, every year. 

 During the rains, before she was bagged, she went on killing men more 

 25 



