MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 393 



-' shooting excursions. There were very few villages, and these far 

 " apart, with narrow footpaths, through heavy grass and underwood 

 " jungles, leadmg from one to the other and if the tigers were so inclin- 

 " ed they could kill bipeds daily without exposmg themselves to view, 

 " still very few villagers were ever carried away. 



" The tigers found in Southern India, judging from measurements 

 '' and descriptions recorded, are more sohdly built, have larger heads in 



■" proportion to the body, and very expanded pugs. They have short 

 " tails, and as far as I have been able to ascertam, the skin has more of a 

 " yellowish hue, than those of Bengal. They are more addicted to man 



*' kilhng, and fearlessly approach human habitations when pressed by hun- 

 '• ger. I dare say the hilly nature of the country they have to live in, has 

 " good deal to do in their being more muscularly than those infesting 

 " the plains of Bengal." 



Commenting on the above in the Asian of 20th January 1880 " Young 

 .Nimrod " writes :— 



" I think it should be conceded that the tigers inhabiting Northern Benga 

 " and the Terai must be pronounced to be longer but not so well developed 

 " as those of Southern and Central India, and this I never doubted. The 

 '"' same may, I think, be said of the tigers of the Sundarbans, and I so 

 " described them in my article on the Roj^al Bengal tiger, which appeared 

 " in the Oriental Sporting Magazineior'NoYembeT 1812, i^. 520. Yourcorres- 

 " pondent 'Joe' has furnished in a tabulated form much valuable information 

 " regarding the length of numerous tigers, four of which are stated to have 

 "reached exactly 11 feet, and only one to have attained beyond that length 

 " being five inches above it. Now I have always contended that a tiger over 

 "" and not up to 11 feet is a desideratum, and I have therefore only to deal 

 " with the animal represented to be 11 feet 5 inches. Of course if the 

 " measurement had been accurately taken, there would be nothing further 

 -" to sajr on the subject and I should be glad to admit that 1 had at last 

 " found a tiger exceeding 11 feet in length. But ' Joe ' has favoured us with 

 " the method of measurement adopted by him, and this shoAvs a radical 

 '• defect, which j^roves that the measurements were not perfectly accurate. 

 " The mode of measurement practised appears to have been to pass the 

 " tape — was the measuring tape invariably used or a piece of string 

 *' afterwards measured, and did the sportsman or the servants take the tape 

 " along the length of the tiger— from tip of the nose to the extremity of 

 "■ the tsbil folloiving thz undulations of the body in a line thereivithl The 

 "part of the above sentence I have itaUcised shows that the measurement 

 " was inaccurate — inasmuch as it does not represent the exact length of the 

 " animal. I am quite sure that ' Joe ' would never tMnk of taking the 

 " height of a horse by measuring from the heel to the shoulder by following 

 •" the curves of the body from one point to the other ': Then why should 

 " the length of a tiger be measured in a different manner ? In the former 

 " case any Steward of a Race Meeting would reject the measurement 

 " taken, and in the latter Naturalists have no option but to act in the same 

 " way. I observe that the length of the tiger shot on the 18th April 

 " 1870, when the G. C the late lamented Lord Mayo, was out with the 

 " party, is stated by ' Joe' to have been 11 feet, while another of the 

 '• same party, A. P., of Calcutta, I think the late J. H. G. told me, 

 " who furnished an account of that shooting excursion to the ^ 0. S. M. 

 " (see No. for July 1878, p. 1220), says it was ' 11 feet 1 mch. Who is 

 " right ? I presume ' Joe ' is ; yet it shows how apt mistakes as to 

 -" measurements are liable to occur, and how very careful it is neces- 

 " sary to be in such matters." 

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