THE TIGER. 53 



amounted to 5845 persons, and 98,897 head of cattle, as the levy 

 made by the tiger, for his support. The statistics of the reports 

 on the " Eesults of the Measures adopted in British India with a 

 view of Exterminating Wild Beasts and Snakes," shows that for 

 the years 1875—1881, 3501 tigers were killed in Bengal, and 

 rewards— amounting to £6450— claimed ^ while in the whole 

 presidencies and provinces 11,212 tigers were killed— barely two 

 animals for each human life ! — which cost the Government £26,957. 



Near Salem, eighty miles north of Trinchinopoly, there is a 

 jungle, noted some years ago for man-eating tigers, all of which have 

 fortunately been killed ; and all along the right bank of the river 

 Cauvery are cairns of stones every few hundred yards, and often 

 closer even than this, marking the resting-place of the ill-starred 

 travellers upon whom the tigers had sprung from the jungle 

 bushes and high grass that fringes the road, and satiated their 

 appetite for human prey. 



Tigers have an aversion to water, — a trait common to nearly all 

 the felidce — but when disturbed, or suspecting danger, they do 

 not hesitate to swim across a stream or river. 



They seldom, if ever, roar ; but when charging and angered, 

 are said to utter a succession of rapid, startling, coughing growls. 

 A writer on the subject of the tiger says : — " I cannot call to 

 mind having met in any book with an accurate description of the 

 tiger's cries. The snarling and growling of the animal when 

 ' stirred up with a long pole ' is familiar to those who have visited 

 a menagerie, and appears to be the only noise the creature makes 

 when in a state of captivity ; but in his native forest, in the long 

 nights of the cold season, when the wood or the hill seems to 

 sleep in the moonlight, the tiger, striding along his lonely path, 

 and seeking his fierce mate, mews like an old tom-cat — or, 

 rather, like one hundred old tom-cats in chorus. It is a loud, and 

 harsh, and grating miau ; a sound of dread echoing along the 

 dreary jungle, making the sentry pause as he passes on his post 

 by the slumbering camp, and the solitary settler turns in his cot 

 and thanks the gods his little ones are safe within. It is seldom 

 heard more than twice or thrice. When the tiger is on the look- 

 out for food (usually in the evening), he lies silent and motionless 



