20 TSB ROYAL TIGER OF BENGAL. 



■were pointed out to me in the stream, about thirty 

 feet apart, called the Tiger's Leap. I made inquiries 

 about these animals. They insist that eight came 

 to their country (Borneo) ; that they were not tiger- 

 cats, as I had suggested. If such animals were ever 

 here, they might have escaped from cages in the 

 capital, as it was a common custom among the far 

 Eastern princes to keep these ferocious creatures, 

 though I never heard of Bornean princes doing so. 

 I have read somewhere that formerly there were a 

 few tigers on the north-east coast, probably let loose 

 by strangers, as the ancestors of the elephants 

 were."* 



It is found in Georgia, north of the Hindoo 

 Koosh, in Bokhara, and Persia. South of the Caspian 

 Sea ; in the Elburz Mountains (the ancient Hyrcania), 

 it is said to be numerous. On the shores of the 

 Aral, Blyth says it proved troublesome to the 

 Russian Surveying Expedition in the mid-winter, 

 and it is found as far north as the shores of the Obi, 

 and in the deserts which separate China from Siberia. 

 It exists, according to A. Murray, " on the Irtisch, 

 and in the Altai regions, and thence eastward to 

 Amur-land, where it is very destructive to cattle ; 

 and so round by China, Siam, to all India southward 

 of the Himalayas." Though absent from Ceylon 

 and Borneo, it is found in Burmah and the Malayan 

 peninsula as far south as Singapore, Java, Sumatra, 



* St. John's " Life ia the Forests of the Far East," vol. ii. 

 p. 115. 



