44 PONY KILLED BY TIGER 
It was now wet weather, and too early for butter- 
flies; but my time was fully occupied in getting the 
native collectors acquainted with the work I wished of 
them, establishing different stations, &c., and then in 
spare time beating the flowering bushes, with a light 
but closely woven circular basket held underneath, to 
collect the small, but highly interesting, coleopterous 
insects that abound in such places. I felt convinced 
that the place would eventually prove rich in Lepi- 
doptera, and in this I was not disappointed. 
On April 23 I was informed that a tiger had killed 
a pony, and upon proceeding to the spot found the 
pony to be one that my boy and myself had noticed 
feeding the day before. The tiger must have been 
an enormous brute, as his footmarks measured 54 
inches across. I found during my stay that tigers 
are very numerous in this district, and that they do 
much damage to the live-stock of the natives, which 
consists of horses, ponies, cows, and pigs. They never, 
as far as I could learn, attack human beings, and the 
natives are strangely careless in the protection of their 
live-stock. Pigs, for example, are usually kept in a 
small bamboo pen by the side of the hut, and if one is 
taken out by a tiger, the owner will replace it as soon 
as he is able; but the idea of using a few more bamboos 
in making the pen or sty secure against another attack, 
