CAT. 
wild beaks ; but the greatek numbers, the largeflv 
and the moft cruel, are met with in India, and its 
iflands : they are the fcourge of the country; they 
lurk among the bullies, on the .(ides of rivers, and 
almok depopulate many places : they are infidious, 
blood thirfty, and malevolent *, and feem to prefer 
preying on the human race preferable to any other 
animals: they do not purfue their prey, but bound 
on it from their ambufli, with an elaflicity, and 
from a dikance that is fcarce credible : if they mifs 
the object, they make off; but if they fucceed, be 
it man, or be it beak, even one as large as a Buffalo*, 
they carry it off with fuch eafc, that it feems not 
the-left impediment to their flight: if they are un-' 
difturbed, they plunge their head into the body of 
the animal up to their very eyes, as if it were to fa- 
tiate themfelves with blood, which they exhauft the 
corps of before they tear it to pieces **: there is a 
fort of cruelty in their devaluations, unknown to the 
generous lion ; as well as a poltronery in their fud- 
den retreat on any difappointment. I was informed, 
by very good * authority, that in the beginning of 
this century, feme gentlemen and ladies, being on 
a party of pleafure, under a (hade of trees, on the 
banks of a river in Bengal , obferved a tiger prepar¬ 
ing for its fatal fpring; one of the ladies, with 
amazing prefence of mind, layed hold of an Um¬ 
brella, and furled it full in the animaPs face, which 
inkantly retired, and gave the company opportunity 
of removing from fe terrible a neighbor. 
* Bontius, 53. Strabo . lib. xv. relates much the fame of the Tigers 
of the c wintry of th Q 'Prq/ii. 
Bontius 3 53. 
Another 
