110 ON THE ORIGINAL HOME OF THE TIGER. [ Feb. 3, 
corner of India, though I will allow that lions were probably 
commoner than they are now in the olden time, though probably 
never very numerous. 
I remember, when I first went to India, nearly 50 years ago, a 
lion being killed not very far to the southward of Allahabad, but 
this was even then a rare occurrence. I have studied the 
question of the habitat of lions and tigers in Persia, where I 
resided for a good many years. lions are found only in the 
very south of Persia, near the Persian Gulf, and Arabia; while 
tigers are only seen in the very north of Persia, near the Russian 
border, and especially near the Caspian Sea, on the north of 
Persia, and they are more numerous within British territory 
than within the Persian boundary, and tigers are more common 
in Southern Siberia than they are anywhere in Persia. 
Tigers are more numerous in cold countries. They are plen- 
tiful in Corea, which has a severe winter climate, and still more 
plentiful in the Island of Saghalien, belonging to Russia, and 
further north than Corea, and which has almost an arctic climate 
in winter. The tiger is mentioned by Marco Polo in his travels, but 
nowhere as an Indian animal, and I very much doubt whether 
tigers were found in India at the time Marco Polo visited it. 
In the Sanscrit works treating of the fighting between Rama 
and Rawun, the Demon King of Ceylon, though many animals 
are mentioned, such as bears, monkeys, and several others, I 
have been unable to find any mention of the tiger ; and the tiger 
is not found in the Island of Ceylon, though the leopard is; nor 
is the tiger found in the larger island of Borneo, which would 
seem to point to its only inhabiting the islands of the Indian 
Archipelago, which it could reach by swimming. Thus it would 
seem that tigers did not exist in India before the time that Ceylon 
was separated from India. Tigers did not exist in the island of 
Singapore until about 1809, when apparently they swam over 
from the mainland. Tigers are such good swimmers that they can 
cross a considerable body of water. J do not think any allusion 
to tigers in India can be found in the Greek historians. I should 
feel much obliged if anyone could find me such a reference. 
In the monuments of the Assyrian Kings, and of the Kings of 
Persia, there are constant references to lion-hunts by those kings, 
but never allusion to a tiger-hunt. Of course there is an existing 
Persian word for tiger, but there is nothing to show that it is at 
all ancient. 
My own idea is that the tiger was originally a purely northern 
animal, which has gradually extended southward. I fancy that 
no allusion to a tiger in India can be traced to a period anterior 
to the early Mahommedan conquerors of India. I should be 
much obliged to anyone who will help me to clear up this 
question. We English have so completely assumed the idea 
that the tiger is an Indian animal, that we have called him the 
Royal Bengal Tiger, though I firmly believe he is as much an 
intruder from the north into Bengal as we are ourselves. 
