2i6 Wild Beasts 



mullay forest in this manner. " His death," says Leva- 

 son, "must have been instantaneous, as the tigress with 

 the first blow of her paw crushed his skull, and his brains 

 were scattered about." 



" I venture to assert," says Colonel Gordon Gumming 

 (" Wild Men and Wild Beasts "), " that one of the chief 

 characteristics of the tiger is, that in its wild state, it will 

 only feed on prey of its own killing." No other name of 

 equal weight has been appended to a statement such as 

 this. On the contrary, nearly all evidence goes to show 

 that tigers are very indiscriminate in their eating, that 

 they feed on almost anything, living or dead, fresh 

 or putrid. Captain Walter Campbell ("The Old Forest 

 Ranger") mentions the fact of their appropriating game 

 already killed as coming under his personal observation ; 

 and Major Leveson (" Sport in Many Lands ") records that 

 he shot two tigers in the Wynaad forest while they were 

 engaged in a desperate fight for the possession of a deer's 

 carcass. It is notorious that tigers so constantly destroy 

 their cubs that the tigress leaves her mate almost immedi- 

 ately after they are born, and conceals her young. There 

 are several instances in which she herself has been 

 devoured, and there is no doubt of the cannibalism of this 

 beast. J. Moray Brown (" Shikar Sketches "), speaking of 

 the frequency of combats between tigers, says that, " occa- 

 sionally the victor eats the vanquished." Colonel Pollok 

 (" Sport in British Burmah ") informs us that " when two 

 tigers contend for the right of slaughtering cattle in any 

 particular locality, one is almost sure to be killed, and, 

 perhaps, eaten by the other. I have known instances of 



