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Wierd. vies 
UNSCIENTIFIC NOTES ON THE TIGER, 147 
see in the photograph lying almost across the kill was freshly 
broken off a tree on the bank of the nullah. It appeared to me 
that after eating the tigress had ascended the bank and reared herself 
up on her hind legs, resting her forequarters on the branch, which 
broke with the weight. The tigress and two cubs were sitting 
close by in the water hole, and gave vent to a series of growls 
as I approached, but finding I was not intimidated, sneaked off up 
a kind of ditch overgrown with grass without my seeing them, 
although I was within fifteen yards, They returned to the nilghai 
the next night, and finished it. I have here a photograph of the 
nilghai after the second night. You will see nothing is left except 
the head, bones of the legs, ribs, and some skin. You will 
also perceive from the surroundings that the carcase had been 
dragged to another spot before being eaten. I also returned at 
daylight, but the tigers had then left. I shot the tigress late 
in the afternoon. She vomited up large strips of the nilghai’s skin 
in a perfect state, not digested at all, and as 1 shot her at least 
twelve hours after she had been eating, it appears that skin ig not 
easily digested. One of the cubs, about the size of a panther, 
was algo killed ; the other escaped. Only last week when out stalking 
in the Haster holidays, I found the carcase of an old bull nilghai 
that had escaped from a tiger, but died of the wounds inflicted on 
it, probably from blood-poisoning. It had been dead about a day. 
he tiger had seized it by the hind leg immediately above the 
hock, hamstringing the leg. He had also bitten through the other 
hind leg in the same place, but had not hamstrung this leg. The 
nilghai had somehow got away. I could not find any other marks of 
the tiger on it, although there had probably been some scratches 
with the claws, as the vultures had made a few holes where the skin 
had, no doubt, been gashed. The holes made by the tiger’s teeth 
were full of maggots, bred while the animal was alive, the rest of 
the carcase being comparatively fresh. T took a photograph of the 
hind leg, which shows clearly the teeth marks immediately above 
the hock. You will see they are too large and too wide apart to 
have been caused by a panther. The large hole shown in the 
picture in the thick part of the leg had been made by vultures, of 
which there were many sitting about waiting until decomposition had 
proceeded far enough to enable them to get through the tough skin. 
I fancy this tiger must have been a young inexperienced one, or 
the nilghai would not have got away. Opinions differ as to the 
