UNSCIENTIFIC NOTES ON THE TIGER. 145 ll 
this is that their cubs stay with the mother till they are about two 
years old; so if the tigress should lose her cubs she would, no doubt, 
breed again sooner. The period of gestation is said to be thirteen 
weeks: from two to four cubs are usually brought forth. <A litter 
of five cubs is said by Colonel Peyton (ude supra) to be not uncom- 
mon. The late Major Neill, of the Central India Horse, told me of 
one case in his own experience of six unborn cubs being found in a 
tigress that was shot. The tigress, however, rarely rears to 
maturity more than two cubs, and sometimes only one. I have never 
seen myself a tigress accompanied by more than two well-grown cubs: 
nor have I seen tracks of a larger number with their mother. Col. 
h Peyton (wbi supra) mentions three instances of tigresses having 
been shot in Canara, when accompanied by a well-grown family of 
five, and I have heard of more than one authentic instance of four 
cubs coming out in a beat with their parent. The cubs remain 
with their mother until they are about two years old. There is no 
particular breeding season, as young cubs have been found at all 
periods of the year; but I believe that most of the cubs are born 
from February to May. I daresay my belief is wrong, but itis based 
on the age of cubs onesees in the hot weather, the size of their tracks 
one sees then, and the likelihood that they would be born at a time 
of the year when the food of the mother is more easily procurable. 
In the months of March, April, and May the water supply of a coun- 
try is much diminished, and the deer and hog, which are the natural 
food of the tiger, necessarily congregate where the water remains, 
Sn anna 
and are not so widely scattered as they are at other seasons; and it 
follows that the tigress has then less trouble in hunting for her | 
prey than she otherwise would have. Wild animals and birds in | 
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Hurope are born and hatched at a season when a plentiful supply of 
their food is produced by Mother Nature. I am not sure, however, 
that this holds good in the Hast, where there is nosevere cold climate | 
or winter to contend with. 
No one seems to know to what age a tiger will live. Individual | 
tigers are well-known to the native shikaris, who have, however, no | 
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idea of time as measured by years. They don’t know their own 
ages, and no reliance can be placed upon their accuracy in anything 
relating to time. The only reliable information I have on the sub- 
ject is from Colonel J. Hills, of the Engineers, who informed me 
that he shot a tiger that had been wounded by the district officer 
of the time, sixteen years before, by an Enfield bullet in the neck. 
