Suddenly there emerged from underneath the trees a brownish-yellow object which appeared about the size of a monkey, and for a moment, in the failing light, I thought it was one. It darted rapidly along the bare ground for about twenty yards at a time, moving towards the bullock, and stopping at the end of each run behind one of the tufts of grass about two feet high, over which it peeped, then sinking down again and gliding forward as before. It was now nearer, and by this time I could see that it was not one of the monkeys; but still I could not clearly make out what it was. It reminded me of a very ugly, large, yellow and black mask at a pantomime. I could see no legs or body. Now it reached a tuft about forty yards from me, over which it also peeped, staring intently at the bullock. By this time I was convinced that it was the tiger, though it looked about the size and shape of a horse’s head. The curious appearance which the tiger had presented at a distance of about seventy yards, in shape like the head of a horse with the chin touching the ground, was no doubt owing to my seeing his forepaws underneath and part of his back foreshortened over the top of his head. What most particularly struck me was the small object which the tiger appeared during the stalk. It must be remembered that, although I perhaps saw a little of the back between his ears, I was looking down upon him from a much higher level, and that if I had been on the ground I should probably have seen nothing but his head. Thus the tiger was evidently able to hide himself behind any tuft of grass which was large enough to conceal his head. Another remarkable thing was the position in which he held his head. It was no longer in the usual attitude, with the nose in the air, as when the animal is walking about; but the face was held vertically, the chin being drawn in, and the forehead pressed forward, thus displaying its black stripes and markings, together with the intent stare of the large eyes. This greatly added to its sinister appearance.

Williamson describes another variety of sitting up, the sportsman being enclosed in a strong bamboo cage and playing the part of bait himself, being armed with two or three spears:

Being accompanied by a dog, which gives the alarm, or by a goat, which by its agitation answers the same purpose, the adventurer wraps himself up in his quilt, and very composedly goes to sleep in full confidence of his safety. When the tiger comes, and perhaps after smelling all round begins to rear against the cage, the man stabs him with one of the spears, through the interstices of the wickerwork, and rarely fails at destroying the tiger.

The writer heard of an instance of this being tried by a European, with a cage made of iron. Unfortunately the bars were set too far apart, and the tiger got his paw through and slew that adventurer.

Williamson also narrates the old story—possibly it was taken from his book—of tigers being caught by covering leaves with birdlime; it was told him by a Mahommedan gentleman of the Court of the Nabob Vizier of Oude. Sanderson gives a capital account of tiger-netting, as practised in Mysore, and describes the various traps occasionally used by natives. The late Maharajah of Patiala, about 1872, had a tiger that had been trapped in the hills turned out on the plain outside the town, he and his guests being mounted on elephants. Of course the whole of the populace assembled to see the fun, forming a large circle round the plain. The tiger, on being released where there was not sufficient cover for a quail, selected as his point of exit the buggy of a native gentleman, who sought refuge between the wheels; his groom, being unfortunately in the way as the tiger cleared the conveyance, was knocked over, but luckily more frightened than hurt. The tiger then took refuge in a garden, pursued by the elephants. On their arrival at the spot the gardener was found placidly pursuing his avocation, and, on being asked if he had seen the beast, imprudently pointed him out. The tiger at once sprang on the man, upset him and bolted; but as he was now heading for the English doctor’s stables he was considered to be becoming dangerous, and was cleverly shot by the Maharajah.

Sanderson, in describing the way a tiger attacks and kills his prey, says that in attacking a bison his object is to get the latter to charge, and then, avoiding the rush, to follow on the instant and endeavour to emasculate the bull by striking him behind. In killing cattle he writes:

The general method is for the tiger to slink up under cover of bushes or long grass, ahead of the cattle in the direction they are feeding, and to make a rush at the first cow or bullock that comes within five or six yards. The tiger does not spring upon his prey in the manner usually represented. Clutching the bullock’s fore-quarters with his paws, one being generally over the shoulder, he seizes the throat in his jaws from underneath, and turns it upwards and over, sometimes springing to the far side in doing so, to throw the bullock over, and give the wrench which dislocates its neck.

Sir S. Baker writes that while lions and cheetahs (Felis jubata) use their paws in striking down their prey at the moment of capture, tigers apparently never do. Sanderson points out that Forsyth, as also Captain Baldwin in his ‘Large and Small Game of Bengal,’ agree that tigers seize by the back of the neck, and then give the dislocating wrench. The writer noticed the fang-marks on a good many kills in Central India, and certainly they appeared from their position rather low down, apparently too much so to have been inflicted by a bite on the back of the neck—a tiger’s jaw is not very long—to entirely support Sanderson’s description. As regards a tiger’s powers of springing, Sanderson says he has often measured the bounds of tigers that have pursued deer, and found 15 ft. to be about the distance they usually spring.

The writer particularly noticed the way a tiger sprang at an elephant: he did not bound from a distance at all, but simply galloped up till he was just under the elephant’s ear-hole, and then sprang vertically upwards, placing his forepaws on the elephant’s head, and there he hung till the elephant shook him off. A tiger can with ease get his forepaws on to an object twelve to fifteen feet from the ground; but he seems clumsy in getting sufficient hold with his hind paws to enable him to proceed after his first spring. Sanderson says that tigresses do not breed at any fixed season. Sterndale states that they go with young for about fifteen weeks, and produce from two to five at a birth. Sanderson gives four as an unusually large number; the writer saw six taken out of a tigress, but probably these would not all have been born alive. He also saw a tigress with four cubs which must have been nearly a year old, one of them which was shot measuring 4 ft. 9 ins. Mr. Shillingford’s memorandum quoted by Sterndale is interesting:

Cubs one year old measure{Males4½ ft. to 5½ ft.
{Females4”5 ”
”two years”{Males5½”7 ”
{Females5”6½ ”
”three years”{Males7”8½ ”
{Females6½”7½ ”