The Cat Tribe 



43 



Photo by FratelLi Alinari] 



[Flonitce. 



A TIGKR BEFORE SLEEPING. 

 Tigers, wlien abotit to slei^p, sit in tiiis positiua ; when more drowsy, they lie down or roll <iver on their back 



selves we never see. The present writer was informed by a friend that in the Amur 

 Valley he shot three of these tigers in a day, putting them up in thick bush-scrub by the 

 aid of dogs. 



The IvOYAL Bengal Tiger, so called, and very properly called in the old books of natural 

 history, is a different and far more savage beast. It is almost invariably a ferocious 

 savage, fierce by nature, never wishing to be otherwise than a destroyer — of beasts mainly, 

 but often of men. Compared with the lion, it is far longer, but rather lighter, for the 

 lion is more massive and compact. " A well-grown tigress," says Sir Samuel Baker, " may 

 weigh on an average 240 lbs. live weight. A very fine tiger may weigh 440 lbs., but if 

 fat the same tiger would weigh 500 lbs. There may be tigers which weigh 50 lbs. more 

 than this; but I speak according to my experience. I have found that a tiger of 

 9 feet 8 inches is about 2 inches above the average. The same skin may be stretched 

 to measure 10 feet. A tiger in the Zoological Gardens is a long, lithe creatm-e with little 

 flesh. Such a specimen affords a poor example of this grand animal in its native jungles, 

 with muscles in their full, ponderous development from continual exertion in nightly 

 tra^'els over long distances, and in mortal struggles when wrestling with its prey. A well-fed 

 tiger is by no means a slim figure. On the contrary, it is exceedingly bulky, broad in 

 the shoulders, back, and loins, and with an extraordinary girth of limbs, especially in the 

 forearms and wrists." 



This ponderous, active, and formidably armed creature is, as might be expected, able to hold 

 its own wherever Europeans do not form part of the regular population. In India the peasants 

 are quite helpless even against a cattle-killing tiger in a populous part of the country. In 

 tlie large jungles, and on the islands at the mouths of the great rivers, the tigers have things 



