44 WILD ANIMALS. 



lion dies out, for these two large species of the same family 

 rarely exist together in the same district. The majority of the 

 specimens of the tiger that used to reach this country came from 

 Bengal, and hence the animal goes generally by the name of the 

 royal or Bengal tiger ; but it is not by any means confined to 

 one province or to one country, for it has a very wide range, from 

 Turkish Greorgia, through Persia, over India, China, and the East 

 Indian islands, Java and Sumatra ; but it is not found in Borneo 

 nor in Ceylon. Its true home is, however, India, where it is still 

 plentiful, especially in the western frontier of the Punjaub and 

 banks of the Indus ; it is rarely seen now in many of the districts 

 of the Deccan, but is frequently met with near Poonah and along 

 the base of the Himalayas. So far from it being only a tropical 

 animal requiring a warm climate for its habitation, which is 

 the general opinion, it is frequently found in the northern and 

 coldest parts of Asia, especially of China, which abounds with 

 tigers, which in many parts are noted for being of a very large 

 size, and clothed with longer and denser fur ; an instance of 

 nature adapting itself to the climate, for this variety is said to 

 live during the winter in burrows under the snow. 



The tiger appears to have been but little known to the ancients ; 

 among the Creeks, Aristotle merely mentions it as an animal he 

 had heard of, and we learn from Pliny that the first tiger ever 

 seen in Rome was a tame one kept by Augustus, and was pre- 

 sented to him by the ambassadors from Pandion and Porus, kings 

 of the Indies, who were four years on their journey, bearing, 

 besides some magnificent jewels, live elephants, tigers, a serpent 

 twelve cubits long, a river turtle three cubits long, vipers of 

 prodigious size, and a vulture or busted. The majority of the 

 animals seen in Eome were African ones, hence the tiger was 

 always scarce. It appears that at a later date Claudius had four 

 of them, and they were shown at the opening of the Pantheon 

 (a.d. 47). It is surmised that, this fact being unprecedented and 

 so extraordinary, it was deemed a fitting event to commemorate, 

 and those wonderful mosaic pictures of four tigers discovered 

 some time ago in Rome, near the arch of Callicius, was the method 

 adopted of doing so. 



