50 THE ROYAL TIGER OF BEXOAL. 



a tree, from -which a herdsman watches cattle or the 

 grain, or the sportsman waits for game ; it is often 

 used for shooting from, and sometimes is erected in 

 a tree for the purpose of tiger shooting, when the 

 jungle is heaten and the game driven towards it. 



Tigers have occasionally hut very rarely been 

 shot in trees. As they are not tree climbers, the 

 occasions on which they would be found there are 

 quite exceptional ; I have already alluded to this, 

 and to their fondness for scratching the bark of 

 trees with their claws. 



Though preferring the solitudes of his jungle 

 cover, he occasionally finds his way into a village, 

 sometimes even into the villagers' huts. This only 

 happens when impelled by hunger and attracted by 

 food, in which case, being near a village, he may 

 have endeavoured, in his anxiety to take advantage 

 of the first cover, to conceal himself there. I have 

 known a tiger to be killed in the underwood, in a 

 tope of trees, quite close to a village. This tiger had 

 no doubt often roamed through, or close to the 

 village in the night. Sportsmen have often heard 

 them near their tents at night. The roar of the 

 tiger as conventionally understood, is seldom heard ; 

 he generally makes a few short grunts or barks, or 

 savage growls, when roused, attacked, or wounded, 

 and when he charges. During the . stillness of the 

 night, which is only disturbed by the gentle murmur 

 of a mountain rapid, or the sighing of the wind 

 through the branches of the Seesob forest, all camp 



