258 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



heavy rewards were given for every tiger and other danger- 

 ous animal killed, special rewards being placed on the heads 

 of man-eaters ; and I am convinced that many more were 

 killed during that time than previously, though statistics 

 of former years when there was no reward are not available 

 for comparison. The number destroyed increased every 

 year under this stimulus. Rewards for the killing of 

 2414 tigers, panthers, bears, and wolves were claimed in 

 1867 (the last year for which statistics are available), 

 against 1863 in 1865. Tigers are certainly not now so 

 numerous by a great deal in many parts with which I 

 am personally acquainted as they were even six or eight 

 years ago. The reward has now again been much de- 

 creased; and the experience of a few years will show 

 whether the tigers again get the upper hand. It is practi- 

 cally only the cattle-kilHng and man-eating tigers that are 

 productive of injury, those which principally subsist on 

 game being probably more useful than noxious. Poison 

 has sometimes been successful in destroying a man-eater 

 — a famous tigress, that long ravaged the western part of 

 Chindwara district, having been killed with strychnine 

 just a day before I arrived after a forced march of a hundred 

 miles to hulit her. More commonly, however, poison is of 

 no avail with these cunning brutes ; and, as a rule, man- 

 eaters can only be killed by the European sportsman with 

 the help of an elephant, the native shikaris rarely attempt- 

 ing to molest them. Elephants have been made more 

 available than formerly, some of the jungle districts having 

 a Government one attached to them, besides many pos- 

 sessed by various public departments; and man-eaters 

 of a bad type now rarely survive long. It is a great point 

 to extinguish those brutes at the outset of their career, 

 for, if not killed when he commences to prey on human 

 beings, a tiger becomes so cunning that it is afterwards a 

 most difficulfc thing to circumvent him. 



On the 27th of May I shot my last tiger for that season 

 in the famous cover of Dapara, being seized the next day 

 with the preUminary symptoms of what turned out to 

 be a severe attack of jungle fever, brought on by constant 

 exposure to the hot sun by day and the malarious air of 



