THE TIGER. 47 



and also the traces of the teeth, for she shook it like a terrier 

 does a rat. At the moment she made her spring, the elephant 

 most fortunately swerving presented his broad side to the charge, 

 otherwise the mahout must have been killed on the spot ; as it 

 was, had we not been close by, if we had even been beating in 

 line, it is probable that his life would have been lost before we 

 could have put an end to the brute; but owing to the jungle 

 being so small, we were all clustered together on the spot, and 

 instantly firing knocked her off before she could reach him, though 

 certainly there was not a foot's space between her tusks, and Tiis 

 head. She fell dead into the mud, every shot having told ; and 

 the whole business was so instantaneous that I really believe the 

 mahout did not know the danger he had been in, more especially 

 as he had only one eye, and the tigress charged him on his blind 

 side." 



The tiger preys chiefly on cattle, buffalo, and all kinds of deer ; 

 but it will catch the wild hog, and attack much larger animals ; and, 

 under the influence of hunger, there is no predicting what the 

 animal will or will not do in this way, it having been asserted 

 that they will occasionally eat one another ; and it is admitted that, 

 so far from invariably in its wild state only feeding on prey of its 

 own killing, it will at such times eat carrion. Captain Forsyth ^ 

 divided tigers into three classes, based on the prey they naturally 

 select — ^those who habitually live on game, those who lurk around 

 settlements and live on cattle,' and the few who become man-eaters. 



The cattle-killers cause great destruction and loss in India, so 

 much so that the Government has frequently to step in, and by offer- 

 ing additional rewards and appointing special tiger-killers relieve 

 a district of the pests. Although they generally only kill a cow or 

 bullock apiece once in four or five days, yet this aggregates seventy 

 head in the year for each tiger— no light tax ; but it occasionally 

 happens that, through being interfered with, more than one 

 animal is killed at every attack, often three and four being 

 required to appease the wantonness of such a creature. Again, the 

 cubs seem frequently to be encouraged by the mother in the 

 sport of harrying and killing the harmless cattle, hunger being 



2 " Ilighlands of Central India." 



