Bagging a Man-Eater. 
The first news I had of this tigress was when 
I met Mr. Arthur, a deputy commissioner. He 
informed me that she had been killing the village 
people round about Champhawat and Lohaghat 
for a year past at irregular intervals of time, 
killing on two or three successive days and some¬ 
times with a break of a week or two between. 
This, I think, points to the fact that man-eaters 
by no means confine themselves to preying on 
human beings, and this was borne out by what 
subsequently happened in this particular case. 
I left with Mr. Arthur and his wife and trav¬ 
eled as far as Balnnini Bagh with them, at which 
place I had the luck to get a small panther, a 
female, six feet three inches, over a kill. Leav¬ 
ing my kind host and hostess at this place I set 
out with my coolies and baggage for Cardh, 
where, on arriving, I was told that the tigress 
had killed a woman at a place ca'led Barakoto, 
about a week Before, and had been fired at and 
wounded by a native shikari who sat up in com¬ 
pany with another man over the corpse. 
On arriving at Barakoto the next day I was 
given the most alarming descriptions of the 
tigress—her ferocity, her size, varying from any¬ 
thing up to the size of a horse, and so on. No 
native, as far as I could make out, has ever seen 
a small tiger. I urged the natives to help me as 
much as they could by bringing me early infor¬ 
mation about a kill, as it is useless if one hears, 
two or three days after. 
The next morning an old man brought me 
news that the tigress had visited his house in 
the night and prowled about quite close to it 
for some time, ultimately clearing off and kill¬ 
ing a large wild boar two or three hundred yards 
away in an adjoining field. On arriving there I 
found this to be quite true, and saw for myself the 
tracks of a medium sized tiger within ten yards 
of the houses, and judging by the size of the 
boar’s tusks he must have been able to put up a 
pretty good fight before he was killed, but the 
thing which interested me particularly Was that 
there were evidently two tigers, as the tracks 
in the soft ground clearly showed a medium 
sized and a small track, quite different, in fact. 
The larger one with one toe was less deeply 
pressed into the ground on one foot than the 
other. This I afterward found on examination 
of the feet of the tigress to be due to its not 
coming to the ground properly, probably having 
been injured as a cub. The other tracks were 
evidently made by a big cub. 
I accordingly tried to beat the adjoining nullah 
the same day with about 200 men, as I thought 
the tigers would probably remain -there, as there 
was good cover, and being lower than the sur¬ 
rounding country was also much warmer. The 
beat was a failure, principally owing to the 
timidity of the natives, who refused to go down 
into the thick cover and only went about in an 
aimless manner in large parties, leaving huge 
gaps between, beating tom-toms and rolling stones 
down, the hillsides. They found a place where 
evidently one of the tigers had lain down, the 
ground being still warm from the heat of its 
body, but the animal was not seen. 
After this I decided to tie up a buffalo for 
them, and in a couple of days got a kill about 
400 yards from my camp. On going to the place 
I found that the carcass had been dragged about 
150 yards into some scrub, and that there was 
only one small sal tree within shooting and see¬ 
ing distance. I according fixed my machan in 
this, but there was no sign of the tigress as long 
HORN TIPS DIRECTED FORWARD. 
'the prong on an antelope horn usually points forward 
and outward. Upper figures show inner surfaces, and 
lower figures outer surfaces. The deep bend where the 
tips pass the prongs gives the odd effect of a hole. 
as the light held and afterward I was disap¬ 
pointed to find that the moon shone on every¬ 
thing except the kill, owing to the thick scrub 
all round, which I had been afraid to cut for 
fear of arousing the tigress’ suspicions. This 
is, I think, a mistaken idea, though in the case 
of some tigers it may do so. * 
At about 11:30 p. m. I heard the tigress come 
up and take hold of the kill, and keeping all the 
time in the black shadow drag it noisily away, 
but though I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse 
of her I could not do so. I found next morning 
that she had reached from between the stems of 
some small trees and dragged the carcass toward 
her, the head being pulled off between the bushes 
in doing so. After dragging it about five yards 
she commenced to eat it, and then I turned over 
and eventually got on my knees in the machan 
to try to see through the thick undergrowth. At 
the first sound she stopped eating, and then with 
a coughing roar came toward the tree I was in. 
I was evidently in,full view in the bright moon¬ 
light, but not a single part of her body could I 
see between the leaves. After this she drew 
back, and taking hold of the carcass dragged it 
a little further off, about ten yards, I suppose. I 
stood up and peered to where she was, but was 
unable to see her, though she went on calmly 
eating and crunching bones for the next four 
hours, by which time I was shivering with cokb 
and disgusted with the whole affair, so I lay 
down and slept for an hour before daylight. 
The next night I tied up three buffaloes in the 
nullah and sat over the one at the place where 
the first kill had been. At about 7130 p. m. I 
heard a tiger make a slight grunt some hundred 
yards off and behind me. and finmediately after 
a soft dull “pad,” as of some animal jumping 
down on to a path or hard earth A second 
afterward I heard the voices of a lot of natives 
coming up the path which ran right under my 
tree. This evidently alarmed the tigress, as I 
heard no more until they had passed and gone 
down the other side, the sound of their voices 
being gradually lost in the distance. At 8 o'clock 
a tiger roared for all he was worth, about 400 
yards off down the nullah, where one of my buf¬ 
faloes was tied, and the noise was immediately 
increased by the bellowing of the buffalo and 
the roars of another tiger, which evidently join¬ 
ed in the scuffle. The buffalo was a fu 1 grown 
bull. I had been unable to get a smaller one, 
and I imagine that he must have kept them off 
for some time, as a most, fiendish uproar went 
on for over half an hour, by which time I had 
climbed down my tree and returned to camp, 
meeting about twenty men on the way, armed 
to the teeth with old muzzleloaders, swords and 
kookrees, and carrying torches and lamps. I 
was afraid they might mistake me in the dark 
for a tiger, so called out to them to prevent any¬ 
one taking a pot shot at me.' 
The next morning I went to see the kill and 
on examination found that the tigers in killing 
the buffalo had not touched the throat in this 
case. The whole of the hind quarters were 
eaten, one flank and the withers. The animal 
was very strongly secured by the base of the 
horns to the root of a tree and had been literally 
butchered from behind and hanged by its own 
frantic efforts. Poor beast. I felt sorry for it, 
but as it turned out it doubtless saved many 
lives, both man and beast, by its own death. 
The carcass was under the only tree which 
was big enough for a machan to be fixed in. 
Mindful of my previous experience I had the 
carcass dragged about seven yards to a place 
where there would be no shadows and would 
also thereby avoid the necessity of firing verti- 
