364 MAMMALIA. 



listed in an English journal, -a hundred and forty- eight persons 

 in one year, and a hundred and thirty-one in another, were 

 devoured by Tigers in Java. 



Tiger-hunting holds a high place among the amusements of the 

 Indian nabobs and the English oiheers stationed in Hindostan. 

 This sport is principally followed on Elephants placed in line, 

 and on which the hunters ride. When all is read}^, at a pre- 

 concerted signal, thej^ enter the jungles, beat them in every 

 direction, and compel the Tiger to show itself. Fire-arms then 

 do their work. It often happens that the ferocious Carnivore 

 springs on the flank of an Elephant and tries to seize one of 

 the riders. 



Like the Lioness, the Tigress exhibits a most extraordinary 

 degree of aflection for her young, and will defend them with her 

 life against every peril. She conceals them in the same manner 

 as the former from the voracity of the male. A litter is generally 

 composed of from three to five cubs. 



Whatever may be said to the contrary, the Tiger is capable of 

 being trained, and rendered perfectly docile ; it is even susceptible 

 of a certain degree of attachment. The one that lived, in 1835, 

 in the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, had been 

 brought from India in a ship on which it had been allowed to 

 wander about at large. The confidence it inspired was such that 

 the cabin-boys lay between its legs, and slept with their heads on 

 its flanks. 



A Tigress which had been brought to England, and which had 

 not shown any signs of a bad disposition on board ship, became 

 morose when shut up in the menagerie of the Tower of London. 

 Some time after, however, a sailor, one of its late travelling 

 companions, came to visit the menagerie, and solicited per- 

 mission to enter the den where this Tigress was conflned. The 

 latter at once recognised him, and testified the greatest pleasm-e. 

 All the day after its friend had departed it laj^ prostrate with 

 grief. 



Nero had a Tigress, named Phoebe, that he often kept near him 

 in his apartments, and which he more than once made the instru- 

 ment of his brutal vindictive feelings. At the termiaation of an 

 orgie, nothing gratified him so much as to point out to this 

 animal some illustrious Patrician that had come under his 



