240 Wild Beasts 



months the length is five feet, and at the expiration of 

 a year he measures five feet eight inches. When two 

 years of age the male's length from tip to tip is about 

 seven feet six inches, and that of the tigress seven feet. 

 Between the second and third year they separate from 

 their mother. While in the days of his youth the lodia 

 bagh makes indiscriminate war upon the brute creation, 

 commits unnecessary murders, stalks his prey instead of 

 surprising it, and, Leveson and others assert, chases it 

 like the cheetah. But time diminishes nervous energy, 

 and leaves him, like all other beings, bereft of the incite- 

 ments its excess engenders. Experience warns him 

 against the consequences of temerity, and he grows lazy. 

 Then these animals take to ambushing deer-runs and 

 drinking places ; they round up game by moving round 

 and roaring ; they practise upon the curiosity which besets 

 the Cervida; and partly show themselves in the jungle to 

 tempt an axis deer to a closer inspection ; they are also said 

 to bark in imitation of the sambur stag, in order to lure a 

 doe or some pugnacious buck, within reach of a rush. 



As for the beast that takes to man-eating, what was 

 most probably at first an accidental event, now be- 

 comes the occupation of its life. In the first place it 

 encountered men casually, now this is done with inten- 

 tion. He must study the habits of his game, and that he 

 does so, is attested by his fatal success. Adme khane 

 •wallah, the eater of men, glares upon them from every 

 " coign of vantage " ; he discriminates between individuals, 

 classes, and occupations, he learns the ways of farmers 

 and woodcutters, of women who wash by the stream, of 



