When only six weeks old the cubs move from place to place with their mother, but are left at home while she hunts, though she leads them to feast if near when she kills.
Watching for the return from a kill, or at a pool where they are known to drink, is a method of hunting chiefly practiced by natives. Poison pitfalls and traps are generally brought into play when dealing with a man-eater. There is perhaps no method of shooting tigers so seldom successful as watching for their return to feed on animals they have killed. For my part, I confess to a great liking for the silent and solitary watch, which kind of shooting requires the utmost vigilance and patience.
In a shady, green-screened platform in some fine tree, watching at the cool of evening, when jungle sounds alone break the stillness and birds and animals seldom seen at other times steal forth and can be watched at leisure, an intense excitement is kept alive by the possibility of the tiger's appearance at any moment. Those without experience at this game do well to pause, but one who knows the beast he has to deal with may kill many dangerous animals on foot without accident or even serious adventure. Almost every accident that occurs is directly traceable to ignorance or carelessness; the hunter is a tyro or over-venturesome, or due precautions are not observed when following a wounded beast on foot and moving about where he does not think the animal can possibly be, he is seized.
Tiger shooting on foot can never, of course, be safe sport; risks must be run, but if properly conducted, dangerous game shooting on foot is not the mad amusement usually supposed.
It makes all the difference in the world whether the animal to be attacked is wounded or not, and whether any tiger should be attacked on foot or left alone depends greatly on the nature of the jungle in which he is found.
In the grass plains and thick undergrowth in parts of the Malay Peninsula I have seen tigers that could only be shot at from the elevation of an elephant's back. None but the utterly ignorant would think of following a wounded tiger in the long grass or close cover where it has every advantage, and the hunter may be seized before he has time to use his rifle. In such cover the tiger rarely makes any demonstration, seeking only to avoid observation, but when almost stumbled upon he attacks like lightning.
Under no temptation should a hunter's last shot be fired at a retreating beast.
The really best time for tiger hunting in the Malay Peninsula is in the height of the hot season, July and August, when the water supply is at its lowest ebb. The tigers being very impatient of thirst, seek the lowest valley where much of the game he preys upon has gathered and where the village cattle are regularly watered.
It is quite useless to devote much time in hunting the hill or game killing tiger that preys upon game alone; they are so scattered over a large tract of jungle and so active and wary that it is only by accident that they are ever brought to bay.
The average size of a full-grown tiger is from eight and a half to nine feet from nose to tip of tail and weight from two hundred and seventy-five to three hundred and twenty-five pounds.