52 WILD ANIMALS. 



tiger witli his knock-down blow dislocates the neck of his 

 victims." 



The tiger's power to kill much larger animals than itself, 

 which is so frequently employed against the human race, 

 as well as their worldly possessions, condemns the animal as a 

 scourge, and despite its beauty, and the apologies and inter- 

 cessions we read so frequently from Anglo-Indian sportsmen on 

 its behalf, the tiger is a pest. It is impossible, to read the statistics 

 of the Government even at the present day and the accounts given 

 by unprejudiced writers without coming to this conclusion. James 

 Forbes, in his " Oriental Memoirs," 1813, speaking of the 

 Molungres, or salt-boilers of the Sunderbunds — the most wretched 

 caste of India, in a lower depth of misery and oppression than the 

 Pariars — who inhabit a sandy shore, surrounded by an immense 

 wilderness full of tigers and snakes, not having any arms to 

 defend themselves, are entirely at the meycy of the wild beasts ; 

 and when one of the lords of the jungle is seen approaching, tliey 

 have no alternative but to hide themselves in holes dug for the 

 purpose. But holes dug in sand are but a feeble protection for the 

 poor wretches, for long experience has taught the tiger these men 

 are his prey, and he therefore proceeds to dig them out with his 

 claws. The bloodshed, misery, and loss is fearful to contemplate. 

 In 1869, one tigress is reported to have killed 127 people, and 

 stopped a public road for weeks. In another case, a similar 

 creature was so destructive that the people deserted thirteen 

 villages, and, as a consequence, 250 square miles of country were 

 left uncultivated. In 1868, a magistrate of Godawary reports the 

 country was overrun with tigers, every village having suffered 

 from the ravages of man-eaters. No road was safe, and a few 

 days before his arrival at Kondola, a tiger charged a large body 

 of villagers within a few hundred yards of the civil station. The 

 Bengale^e, according to the Government reports, seem to be the 

 favourite food of these animals, for during the seven years ending 

 1881 they killed no less a number than 2535 persons, and 23,133 

 head of cattle in this province alone (a diminution in number 

 however, to the six years ending 1866, when the fearful figures 

 reached 4218 persons.) The total for all India during this period 



