When they reach three years of age they lose their ‘milk canines,’ which are replaced by permanent fangs, and at this period the mother leaves them to cater for themselves, the tigress breeding once in three years.
Mr. Shillingford also notes that out of 53 cubs (18 mothers) 29 were males, and 22 females, the sex of two cubs not being given. This tends to prove that there are an equal number of each sex born,[19] the marked preponderance of adult tigresses over tigers being accounted for by most writers by the native story that the male tigers kill the young male cubs. The writer offers another suggestion: may not the young male tigers as soon as they leave their mothers avoid the domains of the heavy old cattle-lifters, and taking to the hills and forest form the game-killing class, till they are powerful enough to succeed to the estates of their sires, either by force or by inheritance, owing to their sire having met with an accident when entertaining a sahib, and so settle down and take wives? The writer has no proof to give in support of this suggestion, but merely offers it for sportsmen to consider. With respect to the common native story that the age of tigers may be told by the number of lobes in their livers, the writer made the following observations in Central India: Tigress, 6 lobes; tiger, 8 lobes; tigress, 7 lobes; cub (male), 6 lobes; male panther, 7 lobes; tigress, 7 lobes; tiger, 8 lobes; tigress, 7 lobes; tigress (a very old light-coloured one), 7 lobes; tiger, 7 lobes.
Sanderson says he has shot tigers and panthers with from 9 to 15 lobes. An article on the age of tigers as shown by their length, written by Mr. F. A. Shillingford for ‘The Asian’ and copied in ‘Land and Water,’ August 30, 1890, appears to be worth quoting:
It was the opinion of the late Mr. Joe Shillingford that in Bengal and the Nepal Terai, at all events, tigers, as distinguished from tigresses, did not attain full maturity until they attained a length of over 10 ft., measured ‘sportsman’s style,’ and that occasionally they attain a length of 11 ft., and that the 12 ft. tiger shot by the late Mr. C. A. Shillingford was an exceptional monster, like the exceptional tigress, 10 ft. 2 ins. in length, shot in 1867, and in these opinions I entirely concur. I have a collection of over a hundred tiger skulls, and in no case are the parietal sutures obliterated from old age of skulls of tigers below 10½ ft. in length.
Tigers take to water readily, and swim higher out of the water than most animals.
Elephants who take matters into their own hands and charge at tigers are exceedingly dangerous in the field, particularly after a tiger has been killed and men are dismounting to pad it. All the elephants in such a case, except the one destined to carry the beast, should be taken away from near the carcase; they are more or less in an excited state, and are apt to mistake a man in the grass for another tiger. The writer remembers being on an elephant that stood perfectly steady for the shot, but as soon as the tiger was killed—it was within a few feet of her—it was all the mahout could do to prevent her charging it.
The elephant has a way of playing football with an animal which though diverting to a spectator is awkward for the man in the howdah. The elephant performs a kind of war dance over the carcase, kicking it about between his feet, lifting it with the front of the hindfoot and returning it from the back of the forefoot till tired, when he places one ponderous hindfoot upon it and squashes it flat. If an elephant has been mauled, it is not at all a bad plan to let it play with the carcase of its enemy; but everything should be taken out of the howdah, and the skin will not be worth much afterwards.
Two other serious dangers that have to be guarded against in tiger shooting are bees and red ants. Bees generally hang their hives from boughs of trees or on the face of rocks, but often they have them in high grass, and an elephant pushing his way through disturbs them, rendering them exceedingly aggressive, whilst a shot fired near them is quite enough to make them attack. Deaths of men and animals from their stings have often been recorded; they almost always go at the head, and the best way of escaping is to cover the head with a blanket, which should invariably be placed in each howdah. The mahouts always sit on theirs. Oddly enough, if the head is covered the rest of the body, even of unclad natives, usually escapes their attentions. A nest of red ants, though not so dangerous, is quite enough to put anyone to flight, as they bite unmercifully and leave their nippers in. No one would ever think of climbing a tree with a bee’s nest in it, but equal care should be taken that red ants, which are hard to detect, are not in it also; an inspection of the trunk will usually decide the question, especially if the boughs touch nothing else. In selecting camping grounds particular attention to these points is also necessary; most servants do not take the trouble to look up into the trees, and will light their fires under a bee’s nest till they have been properly stung once; but their carelessness may result in the loss of ponies’ or even men’s lives.
Sanderson remarks on the danger of firing at a tiger’s head except at very close ranges. The writer saw an instance of this in a tigress hit on the side of the head with an Express bullet; she dropped in her tracks, lying with her head underneath her for nearly a minute, when she recovered, went back into the jungle, and gave a good deal of trouble afterwards, charging the elephants freely. A shot through the shoulder is far more likely to be effective. A tiger seems rather a soft beast, and nearly always drops on receiving his first wound, though he picks himself up pretty quickly. Subsequent wounds have comparatively little effect on any animal, and another curious thing that the writer has noticed is that wounded animals nearly always lie down on their wounded side.
Tigers do not seem to be very particular as to what they eat. Sterndale records an instance of their eating carrion; Sanderson gives a story of three tigers killing and eating a fourth, and of their eating bears; and Colonel Kinloch told the writer of his finding a snow bear killed by a tiger in Chumba, on barasingh ground. Tigers seem to be yearly penetrating deeper into the Himalayas; probably they follow the ever-increasing herds of cattle that come up from the plains in the summer to graze.