TSB nOTAL TIGER OF SMNOAl. 91 



and me ; we had an open space, with about a foot 

 deep of water, between us. He charged us in 

 the most determined manner, and was ailmost on 

 my elephant when a couple of shots in the ribs 

 turned him, and he went growling oflf to a clump 

 of grass, in which he lay down. We went up, 

 but before finishing him he had been on B.'s 

 elephant's hind quarters. D., I think, gave him 

 the coup de grdce in that position. He was a 

 very fine tiger, and the aheers told us he had only 

 just come from the forest, which was close to the 

 swamp, to kill. He was lean and hungry looking, 

 and had an old festering wound on one of his fore 

 legs, and was also blind of an eye. He was 9 feet 

 7 inches in length. The aheers said that they had 

 frightened him off a buffalo that he had struck down 

 yesterday. He must have been awfully hungry and 

 very savage. He would have killed again that day to 

 a certainty. Where we entered the swamp, though it 

 was beautiful grazing ground, the short, young, green 

 grass being such as is much liked by cattle, there 

 was not a single cow or buffalo in it. As we came 

 out with the tiger on an elephant's back, we met the 

 cattle going in in numbers. It is wonderful how 

 instinct seems to tell them of the presence of their 

 enemy. The number of cattle killed by tigers 

 in the Terai annually must be enormous; they 

 prefer them to any other food, for they give less 

 trouble than deer and make a better meal. I suppose 

 a tiger kills every third or fourth day, and when one 



