60 THE SOTAL TIGEB. OF BENGAL. 



Despite his strength, and the ferocity with 

 which he uses his formidable weapons when he is 

 roused, it is remarkable how frequently men have 

 escaped from his clutches. Numbers are now 

 living who have been in the jaws, or have been 

 struck down by the terrible forearm of the tiger, 

 and yet have survived to tell the tale. Seve- 

 ral such cases have occurred within my own 

 knowledge. 



Though the tiger frequently does not succumb 

 untU he has received many wounds, and will con-, 

 tinue fighting to the last even when desperately 

 injured — sometimes even springing up and seizing 

 the elephant or man approaching his apparently 

 lifeless body, and perhaps falling dead in his last 

 efforts to charge — he not unfrequently falls to a 

 single shot ; I have seen this on several occasions, 

 and on four or five have had the satisfaction of 

 bagging the game with a single bullet from smooth- 

 bore or rifle. A ball through the neck, if it cut the 

 spinal cord, is instantly fatal, and the tiger turns a 

 somersault and lies dead in his tracks. A ball 

 through the lungs or heart, behind the shoulder or 

 through the abdomen, near the spine, by cutting the 

 aorta, will cause rapid death, and the tiger is found 

 dead within a few yards of where he was struck. 

 But it is remarkable how many bullets they will 

 take in the head if the brain escape — as it often 

 does, owing to the comparatively small size of the 

 brain cavity — or in the abdomen, trunk, or limbs, 



