THE TIGER. 29 
victim, but deals forth wholesale destruction, without 
mercy and without distinction, upon whatever may 
chance to be within the reach of his murderous talons. 
This, however, is by no means his constant or usual 
practice ; his instinct being in general sufficient to teach 
him that his purpose is as effectually answered by one 
fatal bound as by the most extensive devastation; for 
neither he, nor any of the more powerful of his tribe, 
return to their prey after the first meal, but leave its 
mangled relics for the ignoble beasts which follow in 
their train. 
To what cause then, if the similarity between these 
two animals be so great, and the points of distinction 
between them so trifling, can we attribute the very dif- 
ferent impressions which we have all received, and in all 
probability continue to cherish, with regard to their 
respective characters? Perhaps something like a plau- 
sible answer to this question may be found in the fact, 
that our notions of the Lion have been formed on the 
striking and exaggerated pictures of his noble qualities, 
for which we are indebted to the poets of antiquity, who 
contemplated him only in his captive and almost domes- 
ticated state; while our early ideas of the Tiger were 
derived in a great measure from the equally exaggerated 
statements of miserable and pusillanimous Hindoos, the 
spiritless. and unresisting victims of every species of 
oppression, who regarded him with almost unspeakable 
horror as the merciless tyrant of their forests,—a tyrant 
whose ferocious temper and sanguinary ravages were 
equalled only by those of the human despots, to whom, 
as well as to their brute oppressors, they paid the base 
