1 66 AMALGAMATION OF COLO UK WITH SURROUNDING OBJECTS. 
pression in their faces. I have in this way interviewed over 
fifty tigers. It is extraordinary how difficult it is to distin- 
guish a tiger either in the open or in the jungle; on looking 
at the skin with its large black stripes on a yellowish 
red body, with the pure white on the face, breast, and 
flanks, one would imagine there would be no difficulty in 
seeing it anywhere, but it is not so. The tawny colour so 
corresponds or rather amalgamates with the dry grass and 
leaves, and the stripes with the black shadows of the trees and 
bushes, that the animal becomes almost invisible. I once 
wounded a tiger that did not fall dead on the spot, and con- 
trary to my usual custom 1 followed him, a most dangerous 
proceeding when shooting a tiger on foot. I had two keen- 
sighted natives with me. Presently we came to a spot 
where the jungle was rather open, with a few small trees 
and bushes scattered about, and dry grass a few inches high ; 
the sun was shining brightly, casting the black shadows of 
the trees across the withered grass, and we stood at the 
edge of this open space for some minutes, straining our 
eyes to ascertain where the tiger had gone, suddenly one of 
the men said, ''he dead," and there not more than ten or 
twelve yards from us lay the tiger stretched on the grass, stone 
dead, but his black stripes and yellow body so exactly corres- 
ponded with the black shadows and yellow grass, that none of 
us could at first make him out. Even in the open, at a few 
hundred yards distant, not a stripe can be distinguished on 
a tiger's body, and I have more than once mistaken one 
for a deer. 
The tiger when out prowling for food is often accom- 
panied by a single jackal, and when this is the case the jackal 
has a most peculiar cry or rather howl, and whenever that 
