163 J 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



No. I.— TIGER AND GOAT. 



In the Deccan, at any rate, it is uncommon, I believe, for a tiger to be 

 attracted by a goat, so the following incident is perhaps worth mentioning. 

 One January evening my daughter and I went out to sit up for a 

 panther a mile or so from our camp in the Hyderabad Districts. The 

 machan was placed on a thickish tree in a glade amid fairly heavy jungle. 

 After we were seated, a flock of goats was driven in due course along the 

 foot of the hill, where the panther was supposed to live, and came up behind 

 our tree, bleating lustily. A kid was quickly seized and tied up to a 

 stump in the glade, and the rest of the flock passed on feeding leisurely 

 back in the direction of the village, while the men in charge kept calling 

 as they went, in accordance with the usual procedure to give the panther 

 the idea that the goat left behind was a casual straggler. 



The flock had not gone much more than 100 yards when my daughter, 

 her attention attracted by a slight rustling to the rear, nudged me and 

 whispered "Big Tiger!" Glancing back over my shoulder, there sure 

 enough, I saw, not the spots of the panther we were expecting, but the 

 stripes of a full-grown tiger, which was striding stealthily along — ears cocked, 

 and a beautiful picture of alert concentration — in the direction of our 

 machan. Passing out of sight beneath us for an instant, the tiger then 

 ran rapidly on to the kill. My daughter in her anxiety to save the goat 

 fired at the tiger tail-on, rather too soon to get a picked shot, and the beast 

 bounding oft' into the long f^rass it became a case of driving in a herd of 

 buffaloes the next day, but that is another story. 



The goat, it may be mentioned, was saved by the skin of its teeth, 

 receiving only one claw mark, as the tiger reached out to seize it. 



When the incident was dicussed afterwards, one well-known old 

 shikari of the neighbourhood was inclined to scout the idea that any tiger 

 would follow up a flock of goats in this fashion. The shikari of the village, 

 however, expressed no surprise and said he knew the tiger in question 

 well as a brute which would go for anything from frogs in the tank to- 

 dogs, goats, or even a man. 



The Residexcy, Hyderabad, Deccan, S. M. FRASER. 



January 1920. 



No. II.— LENGTH OF TIGERS AND PANTHERS. 



[n No. 3, Volume XXVI of the Journal, H. H. The Maharaja of Dhar 

 gives some notes on the length of tigers and panthers, shot in his State. 

 It would be interesting to know how the measurements were taken. Such 

 measurements cannot be considered satisfactory unless taken in a straight 

 line between pegs, the tail being measured separately. Measurements 

 round curves must always be unreliable, as no two people are likely to 

 make them alike. His Highness specifies a tigress 9 feet 10 inches in 

 length. 1 find my longest tiger recorded as 9 feet 8 inches in length, and 

 tigress 8 feet 6 inches. Out of a long series carefully measured only two 

 of each sex reached even those lengths. Tails are generally three feet, an 

 inch or two more or less. Measurements were taken in a straight line 

 between pegs driven into the ground at the nose and root of the tail. 

 Measurements of skulls in a straight line between uprights from end to end 

 and across the zygomatic arches should also be taken. 



In Volume XX of the Journal the length of a panther shot by a villager 

 in Tehri State is given as 9 feet 3 inches, bui it is not stated how it was 

 measured. 



Baffoed Grange, Cheltenham, R. G. BURTON, Brig.-Genl. 



December 1919. 



