The Wonders of the Jungle, Book One

by Sarath Kumar Ghosh

But I must tell you that, although the tiger tries very hard to eat the deer, the deer tries still harder not to be eaten! Why? Because if the tiger does not catch the deer for to-day's dinner, he can still catch some other animal for tomorrow's breakfast, even if he goes hungry to-night. But if the deer once gets eaten, there is no to-morrow for, him at all! The tiger is only trying to get a meal, but the deer is trying to save his life. That is why the deer nearly always gets away from the tiger—because he is trying harder than the tiger.

So the tiger does not get deer to eat much oftener than most children get roast turkey. The tiger lives mostly on pork, for the wild pigs of the jungle are such careless animals, as I have told you before. Now and again the tiger gets mutton also, for the wild sheep are silly creatures, like other kinds of sheep. In the same way the tiger sometimes catches a wild goat.

The tiger would really get deer to eat a little oftener than he actually does if it were not that the deer has two other gifts by which he can escape from the tiger at the last minute. Those two gifts are his quickness in getting started, and his speed in running. So, even if the deer makes a mistake and runs toward the tiger, he can still escape from the tiger if he finds out his mistake in time.

For, as you saw at the midnight pool, the deer may be drinking quietly, when he hears or smells a tiger. Then the deer can leap at once and get away, before the tiger can leap. Or it may happen that the deer is trying to escape from a tiger and has run to within twenty yards of the tiger, when he finds out his mistake. Then the deer can turn at once and leap sideways to get out of the tiger's reach. The deer is so quick that he can turn aside without stopping, and keep on running.

Then after that, once he has turned away from the tiger, the tiger can never catch him. For the deer can run ever so much faster than the tiger.

In fact, the deer or the antelope is the fastest animal in the world, except one other. About that other animal I shall tell you some wonderful things in the next book. But among all animals I have told you about in this book the deer is the fastest.

"But how do people know that the deer can run faster than other animals?" you may ask. "Has anyone had a race between different animals?"

Yes, some people did that in England a few years ago. They took the fastest racehorse in the country, and ran a race between him and the fastest greyhound; and the greyhound beat the horse in the race. Then they took that greyhound, and ran a race between him and an English deer; and the deer beat the greyhound in the race. So, you see, the deer was faster than the greyhound, and the greyhound was faster than the horse! So the deer was the fastest of the three.

And the deer that lives in the jungle is even faster than the English deer. Why? Because the English deer lives in peaceful glades and forests, and has no other animal trying to catch and eat him; so he does not try to be as fast as he could be. But the deer that lives in the jungle has to try very hard all the time to be as fast as he can be, or else he would be eaten by the tiger! And, as you must know, we can do the best in anything when we try the hardest.

So, all kinds of wild deer in the jungle have been trying their hardest to run as fast as they can. And as their fathers and grandfathers have been trying to do that, the wild deer to-day have become the fastest runners among all the animals I have told you about.