be formed of the havoc committed by tigers from the returns made to government. In one district only, 300 men and 5000 head of cattle were destroyed in three years. The tiger's method of seizing his prey is, by concealing himself from view, and springing with a horrible roar on his victim, which he carries off and tears in pieces, after having first sucked the blood. His muscular strength is excessively great. Some peasants in the East Indies, having lost a buffalo in a quagmire, and not being able to get it out, went for assistance; while absent, a large tiger came and drew out the animal, which the united efforts of several men had failed in doing. When they returned, the tiger, with the buffalo, feet upward, thrown over his shoulders, was hastening away towards his den. As soon, however, as he saw the men, he let his prey fall, and fled to the woods; but he had previously killed the buffalo, and sucked its blood.

The tigress, like the lioness, produces four or five young at a litter; she is at all times furious, but her rage rises to the utmost extremity when

robbed of her young. She then braves every danger, and pursues her plunderers, who are often obliged to release one in order to retard her motion: she stops, takes it up, and carries it to the nearest cover, but instantly returns, and renews her pursuit even to the very gates of buildings or the shore of the sea; and when her hope of recovering them is lost, she expresses her agony by hideous howlings, which excite terror wherever they reach,

Williamson mentions that two tiger cubs were brought to him while stationed in the Ramghur district, in India. "They had been found with two others by some country people, during the absence of their mother. Being put in a stable, they made a loud noise for several nights, till at length the tigress arrived to their rescue, and replied to them by the most fearful howlings. The cubs were at last let loose, in apprehension that their mother would break in; and in the morning it was found she had carried them off to the neighbouring jungle." In the pathless thickets of forests the tigress rears her young, and is comparatively harm

less. There, feeding on deer, it rarely encounters man; and if a solitary hunter should meet the animal, from instinctive fear of the human race it avoids him. But in the open country he becomes dangerous. Pressed by hunger he seeks his prey, and carries off cattle before the herdsman's eyes: still he rarely attempts to attack man, unless pro→ voked or urged to desperation. But, under whatever circumstances human blood is once tasted, the spell of fear is for ever broken-the tiger's nature is changed, and he deserts the jungle and haunts the very doors of his victims. Cattle pass unheeded, but their driver is carried off, and from that time the tiger becomes a man-eater, not, as is vulgarly supposed, because it has a particular appetite for this kind of food, but because, having once fed upon man, it from that time regards him, like any animal of inferior strength, as its natural prey. The tiger, like the lion, springs on his prey from an ambush, and in most cases he is easily terrified by any sudden and unusual opposition from human beings. We are all familiar with the well-known tale of a lady frightening a tiger, who

was ready to pounce upon a party in India, by suddenly opening an umbrella as he was about to spring.

A few years ago a tigress attacked the horses of the mail on Salisbury plain. She had escaped from a travelling menagerie, and, recollecting her former habits, sprung upon the leaders. The mail-guard would have shot her, but the keepers interceded, and drove her off. She took refuge in a hay-stack, under which she crept, and the keepers with a net took her without difficulty. Near the borders of Tartary, tigers are very common; and in so populous an empire as China, it seems strange that they should not be extirpated. In the northern roads travellers provide themselves with lanterns, to secure them from the attack of these ravenous animals. In some parts of India tigers are particularly fatal to woodcutters and labourers about the forests; and they have been known to swim to boats at anchor, at a little distance from the shore, and snatch the men from on board. In Java they are so much dreaded, that when any person of consequence goes out into the country,

he has with him men who blow incessantly a kind of small French horn, the shrill sound of which frightens these creatures away. The Hindoos seldom, of their own accord, hunt the tiger, although he invades their houses and carries off their cattle, and very often the people themselves, whenever there is a village in the neighbourhood of an uncleared waste, overgrown with reeds and bushes, called a jungle.

Various devices have been used to take or destroy this destructive quadruped. A kind of spring-bow was formerly laid in its way, which discharged a poisoned arrow, generally with fatal effect, when the animal came in contact with the cord stretched across its path. Again, a heavy beam was suspended over the track of the tiger, which fell and crushed him, on his disengaging a cord which let the beam fall. Williamson thus describes a singular mode of his destruction : "When the track of a tiger has been ascertained, which, though not invariably the same, may yet be known sufficiently for the purpose, the peasants collect a quantity of the leaves of the prauss, which