THE ROYAL TIGER OE BENGAL. 27 



within a circle of 100 yards in diameter, in the Nepal 

 Terai, one evening in the end of April, 1871, on the 

 last occasion when the best of viceroys and the keenest 

 of sportsmen was the life and soul of a party who 

 swept those noted tiger heats, little anticipating the 

 great calamity that was so soon to deprive them of 

 their much loved leader. 



The tiger is found in most of the tree and 

 grass jungles throughout India. Those more re- 

 mote from population and cultivation are more 

 frequented, though when compeE&d by hunger he 

 visits and even takes up his abode in the vicinity of 

 the more open, cultivated parts, and in so doing 

 becomes the dread and pest of the villagers, who are 

 in constant apprehension for their own or for the 

 lives of their cattle, though in justice we must say 

 more frequently the latter than the former. During 

 the cold and rainy seasons he is a peripatetic creature, 

 restless and wandering from place to place. At 

 these seasons he probably has no fixed abode, 

 though he keeps within a certain range of country. 

 When the tree or grass jungle is thick, and gives 

 general cover or shelter, he roams freely from place 

 to place, seeking what he may devour, and during 

 these seasons is safer from his human enemies than 

 in the months of March, April, and M.a.j, which, in 

 Bengal, Oude, and the North of India generally, is 

 ,the tiger-hunting season. During these months the 

 extensive plains of long grass and much of the 

 underwood and scrub disappear. They are burned^ 



