54 THE SOYAL TIGES OF SENGAL. 



say that I should regard the complete extinction of 

 tigers with a regret something akin to that with 

 which annihilation of the fox would be regarded in 

 England. So far as the sportsmen and their follow- 

 ers are concerned, serious and fatal accidents are not 

 more frequent from the claws and teeth of tigers 

 than they are in fox-hunting in England, from 

 falls and the chances of the field. 



I certainly would not preserve tigers, and 

 would encourage their destruction, but by hunting, 

 rather than by poison* or the snare. Of course, 

 when no sportsmen are at hand, they should be 

 destroyed without law, when and where they could 

 be found. 



There are several ways of compassing the tiger's 

 death resorted to by sportsmen, and they are prac- 

 tised according to circumstances, the nature of the 

 ooimtry, and the opportunities at command. In 

 Bengal, Central India, the North "West, and the 

 Terai, where he is found chiefly in jungle and grass 

 or swamps, and where he would generally be perfectly 

 inaccessible on foot, the tiger is hunted from ele- 

 phants, and there certainly is no more exciting or 

 nobler sport ; or he is driven in a hunqua (a drive) 

 from his forest or grassy retreat, towards trees or 

 other elevated spots, in which mach^ns are placed, 

 from which the sportsman aims in tolerable safety, 



* Poisoning by stiyohnine has recently been resorted to in the 

 Madras Presidency, where an officer has been appointed by Govern- 

 ment to compass the destruction of tigers. 



