The Tiger 215 



parts of Asia. Cattle-lifters, however, impose a heavy tax 

 on the country, and as these generally grow fat, lazy, and 

 rarely hunt, they are a decided disadvantage to any neigh- 

 borhood. Furthermore, it is from among this class that 

 most man-eaters come. In districts to which cattle are 

 driven to graze, and then withdrawn when the grass fails, 

 tigers accustomed to haunt the vicinity of herds, and that 

 have remained for the most part guiltless of human blood 

 so long as their supply of beef lasted, are apt to eat 

 the inhabitants when it fails. One of these marauders 

 upon livestock will kill an ox every five days, and 

 smaller domestic animals proportionately often, and it is 

 easy to see that the cost of supporting them must be 

 very considerable. 



So much has been said in connection with other beasts 

 of prey upon the subject of those reports in which each 

 group is represented to have an invariable way of captur- 

 ing and killing game, that it seems unnecessary to enlarge 

 upon this point with reference to tigers. They stalk ani- 

 mals, and spring upon them from an ambush. When a 

 victim has been caught, it is destroyed by a blow with the 

 arm, its neck vertebrae are crushed by a bite, its throat 

 is cut, or head wrenched round. Very probably the tiger 

 does not strike habitually like a lion. He often does so, 

 however, and the fact that one was seen to drive his claws 

 into the brain of an ox has been mentioned. Sir Joseph 

 Fayrer reports the case of a tiger that dashed into a herd, 

 "and in his spring struck down simultaneously a cow with 

 each fore foot." Major H. A. Leveson (" Hunting Grounds 

 of the Old World ") saw one of his men killed in the Anna- 



