Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier Part 14

'I have known a tiger devour a whole bullock to his own cheek in one day. Early in the morning a man came to inform me he had seen a tiger pull down a bullock. I went after the fellow late in the afternoon, and found him in a bush not more than twenty feet square, the only jungle he had to hide in for some distance round, and in this he had polished off the bullock, nothing remaining save the head. The jungle being so very small, and he having lain the whole day in it, nothing in the way of vultures or jackals could have a.s.sisted him in finishing off the bullock.'

When hungry they appear to bolt large ma.s.ses of flesh without masticating it. The same correspondent writes:--

'We cut out regular "fids" once from a tiger's stomach, also large pieces of bone. Joe heard a tremendous roaring one night, which continued till near morning, not far from Nipunneah. He went out at dawn to look for the tiger, which he found was dead. The brute had tried to swallow the knee-joint of a bullock, and it had stuck in his gullet. This made him roar from pain, and eventually choked him.'

As there are two distinct varieties of wild pig in India, so there seems to be little doubt that there are two distinct kinds of tigers.

As these have frequently crossed we find many hybrids. I cannot do better than again quote from my obliging and observant friend George.

The two kinds he designates as 'The Royal Bengal,' and 'The Hill Tiger,' and goes on to say:--

'As a rule the stripes of a Royal Bengal are single and dark. The skull is widely different from that of his brother the Hill tiger, being low in the crown, wider in the jaws, rather flat in comparison, and the brain-pan longer with a sloping curve at the end, the crest of the brain-pan being a concave curve.

'The Hill tiger is much more ma.s.sively built; squat and thick set, heavier in weight and larger in bulk, with shorter tail, and very large and powerful neck, head, and shoulders. The stripes generally are double, and of a more brownish tinge, with fawn colour between the double stripes. The skull is high in the crown, and not quite so wide.

The brain-pan is shorter, and the crest slightly convex or nearly straight, and the curve at the end of the skull rather abrupt.

'They never grow so long as the "Bengal," yet look twice as big.

'The crosses are very numerous, and vary according to pedigree, in stripes, skulls, form, weight, bulk, and tail. This I find most remarkable when I look at my collection of over 160 skulls.

'The difference is better marked in tigers than in tigresses. The Bengal variety are not as a rule as ferocious as the Hill tiger. Being more supple and cunning, they can easier evade their pursuers by flight and manoeuvre than, their less agile brothers. The former, owing to deficiency of strength, oftener meet with discomfiture, and consequently are more wary and cunning; while the latter, p.r.o.ne to carry everything before them, trust more to their strength and courage, antic.i.p.ating victory as certain.

'In some the stripes are doubled throughout, in others only partially so, while in some they are single throughout, and some have manes to a slight extent.'

I have no doubt this cla.s.sification is correct. The tigers I have seen in Nepaul near the hills, were sometimes almost a dull red, and at a distance looked like a huge dun cow, while those I have seen in the plains during our annual hunts, were of a bright tawny yellow, longer, more lanky, and not shewing half such a bold front as their bulkier and bolder brethren of the hills.

The length of the tiger has often given rise to fierce discussions among sportsmen. The fertile imagination of the slayer of a solitary 'stripes,' has frequently invested the brute he has himself shot, or seen shot, or perchance heard of as having been shot by a friend, or the friend of a friend, with a, fabulous length, inches swelling to feet, and dimensions growing at each repet.i.tion of the yarn, till, as in the case of boars, the twenty-eight incher becomes a forty inch tusker, and the eight foot tiger stretches to twelve or fourteen feet.

Purists again, sticklers for stern truth, haters of bounce or exaggeration, have perhaps erred as much on the other side; and in their eagerness to give the exact measurement, and avoid the very appearance of exaggeration, they actually stretch their tape line and refuse to measure the curves of the body, taking it in straight lines.

This I think is manifestly unfair.

Our mode of measurement in Purneah was to take the tiger as he lay before he was put on the elephant, and measure from the tip of the nose, over the crest of the skull, along the undulations of the body, to the tip of the tail. That is, we followed the curvature of the spine along the dividing ridge of the back, and always were careful and fair in our attempts. I am of opinion that a tiger over ten feet long is an exceptionally long one, but when I read of sportsmen denying altogether that even that length can be attained, I can but pity the dogmatic scepticism that refuses credence to well ascertained and authenticated facts. I believe also that tigers are not got nearly so large as in former days. I believe that much longer and heavier tigers--animals larger in every way--were shot some twenty years ago than those we can get now, but I account for this by the fact that there is less land left waste and uncultivated. There are more roads, ferries, and bridges, more improved communications, and in consequence more travelling. Population and cultivation have increased; firearms are more numerous; sport is more generally followed; shooting is much more frequent and deadly; and, in a word, tigers have not the same chances as they had some twenty years ago of attaining a ripe old age, and reaching the extremest limit of their growth. The largest tigers being also the most suspicious and wary, are only found in the remotest recesses of the impenetrable jungles of Nepaul and the Terai, or in those parts of the Indian wilds where the crack of the European rifle is seldom or never heard.

It has been so loudly a.s.serted, and so boldly maintained that no tiger was ever shot reaching, when fairly measured (that is, measured with the skin on, as he lay), ten feet, that I will let Mr. George again speak for himself. Referring to the royal Bengal, he says:--

'These grow to great lengths. They have been shot as long as twelve feet seven inches (my father shot one that length) or longer; twelve feet seven inches, twelve feet six inches, twelve feet three inches, twelve feet one inch, and twelve feet, have been shot and recorded in the old sporting magazines by gentlemen of undoubted veracity in Purneah.

'I have seen the skin of one twelve feet one inch, compared with which the skin of one I have by me _that measured as he lay_ (the italics are mine) eleven feet one inch, looks like the skin of a cub. The old skin looks more like that of a huge antediluvian species in comparison with the other.

'The twelve footer was so heavy that my uncle (C.A.S.) tells me no number of mahouts could lift it. Several men, if they could have approached at one and the same time, might have been able to do so, but a sufficient number of men could not lay hold simultaneously to move the body from the ground.

'Eventually a number of bamboos had to be cut, and placed in an incline from the ground to the elephant's saddle while the elephant knelt down, and up this incline the tiger had to be regularly hauled and shoved, and so fastened on the elephant.

'He (the tiger) mauled four elephants, one of whom died the same day, and one other had a narrow _batch_, i.e. escape, of its life.

In another communication to me, my friend goes over the same ground, but as the matter is one of interest to sportsmen and naturalists, I will give the extract entire. It proceeds as follows:--

'Tigers grow to great lengths, some a.s.sert to even fourteen feet. I do not say they do not, but such cases are very rare, and require authentication. The longest I have seen, measured as he lay, eleven feet one inch (see "Oriental Sporting Magazine," for July, 1871, p.

308). He was seven feet nine inches from tip of nose to root of tail; root of tail one foot three inches in circ.u.mference; round chest four feet six inches; length of head one foot two inches; fore arm two feet two inches; round the head two feet ten inches; length of tail three feet four inches.

'Besides this, I have shot another eleven feet, and one ten feet eleven inches.

'The largest tigress I have shot was at Sahareah, which measured ten feet two inches. I shot another ten feet exactly.' (See O.S.M., Aug., 1874, p. 358.)

'I have got the head of a tiger, shot by Joe, which measured eleven feet five inches. It was shot at Baraila.

'The male is much bigger built in every way--length, weight, size, &c., than the female. The males are more savage, the females more cunning and agile. The arms, body, paws, head, skull, claws, teeth, &c., of the female, are smaller. The tail of tigress longer; hind legs more lanky; the prints look smaller and more contracted, and the toes nearer together. It is said that though a large tiger may venture to attack a buffalo, the tigress refrains from doing so, but I have found this otherwise in my experience.

'I have kept a regular log of all tigers shot by me. The average length of fifty-two tigers recorded in my journal is nine feet six and a half inches (cubs excluded), and of sixty-eight tigresses (cubs excluded), eight feet four inches.

'The average of tigers and tigresses is eight feet ten and a quarter inches. This is excluding cubs I have taken alive.'

As to measurements, he goes on to make a few remarks, and as I cannot improve on them I reproduce the original pa.s.sage:--

'Several methods have been recommended for measuring tigers. I measure them on the ground, or when brought to camp before skinning, and run the tape tight along the line, beginning at the tip of the nose, along the middle of the skull, between the ears and neck, then along the spine to the end of the tail, taking any curves of the body.

'No doubt measurements of skull, body, tail, legs, &c., ought all to be taken, to give an adequate idea of the tiger, and for comparing them with one another, but this is not always feasible.'

Most of the leading sportsmen in India now-a-days are very particular in taking the dimensions of every limb of the dead tiger. They take his girth, length, and different proportions. Many even weigh the tiger when it gets into camp, and no doubt this test is one of the best that can be given for a comparison of the sizes of the different animals slain.

Another much disputed point in the natural history of the animal, a point on which there has been much acrimonious discussion, is the number of young that are given at a birth. Some writers have a.s.serted, and stoutly maintained, that two cubs, or at the most three, is the extreme number of young brought forth at one time.

This may be the ordinary number, but the two gentlemen I have already alluded to have a.s.sured me, that on frequent occasions they have picked up four actually born, and have cut out five several times, and on one occasion six, from the womb of a tigress.

I have myself picked up four male cubs, all in one spot, with their eyes just beginning to open, and none of their teeth through the gums.

One had been trampled to death by buffaloes, the other three were alive and scatheless, huddled into a bush, like three immense kittens.

I kept the three for a considerable time, and eventually took them to Calcutta and sold them for a very satisfactory price.

It seems clear, however, that the tigress frequently has four and even five cubs. It is rare, indeed to find her accompanied by more than two well grown cubs, very seldom three; and the inference is, that one or two of the young tigers succ.u.mb in very early life.

The young ones do not appear to grow very quickly; they are about a foot long when they are born; they are born blind, with very minute hair, almost none in fact, but with the stripes already perfectly marked on the soft supple skin; they open their eyes when they are eight or ten days old, at which time they measure about a foot and a half. At the age of nine months they have attained to five feet in length, and are waxing mischievous. Tiger cubs a year old average about five feet eight inches, tigresses some three inches or so less.

In two years they grow respectively to--the male seven feet six inches, and the female seven feet. At about this time they leave the mother, if they have not already done so, and commence depredations on their own account. In fact, their education has been well attended to.

The mother teaches them to kill when they are about a year old. A young cub that measured only six feet, and whose mother had been shot in one of the annual beats, was killed while attacking a full grown cow in the government pound at Dumdaha police station. When they reach the length of six feet six inches they can kill pretty easily, and numbers have been shot by George and other Purneah sportsmen close to their 'kills.'

They are most daring and courageous when they have just left their mother's care, and are cast forth to fight the battle of life for themselves. While with the old tigress their lines have been cast in not unpleasant places, they have seldom known hunger, and have experienced no reverses. Accustomed to see every animal succ.u.mb to her well planned and audacious attacks, they fancy that nothing will withstand their onslaught. They have been known to attack a line of elephants, and to charge most determinedly, even in this adolescent stage.

Bye-and-bye, however, as they receive a few rude shocks from buffaloes, or are worsted in a hand-to-hand encounter with some tough old bull, or savage old grey boar, more especially if they get an ugly rip or two from the sharp tusks of an infuriated fighting tusker, they begin to be less aggressive, they learn that discretion may be the better part of valour, and their cunning instincts are roused. In fact, their education is progressing, and in time they instinctively discover every wile and dodge and cunning stratagem, and display all the wondrous subtlety of their race in procuring their prey.

Old tigers are invariably more wary, cautious, and suspicious than young ones, and till they are fairly put to it by hunger, hurt, or compulsion, they endeavour to keep their stripes concealed. When brought to bay, however, there is little to reproach them with on the score of cowardice, and it will be matter of rejoicing if you or your elephants do not come off second best in the encounter. Even in the last desperate case, a cunning old tiger will often make a feint, or sham rush, or pretended charge, when his whole object is flight. If he succeed in demoralising the line of elephants, roaring and dashing furiously about, he will then try in the confusion to double through, unless he is too badly wounded to be able to travel fast, in which case he will fight to the end.

Old fellows are well acquainted with every maze and thicket in the jungles, and they no sooner hear the elephants enter the 'bush' or 'cover' than they make off for some distant shelter. If there is no apparent chance of this being successful, they try to steal out laterally and outflank the line, or if that also is impossible, they hide in some secret recess like a fox, or crouch low in some clumpy bush, and trust to you or your elephant pa.s.sing by without noticing their presence.

It is marvellous in what spa.r.s.e cover they will manage to lie up. So admirably do their stripes mingle with the withered and charred gra.s.s-stems and dried up stalks, that it is very difficult to detect the dreaded robber when he is lying flat, extended, close to the ground, so still and motionless that you cannot distinguish a tremor or even a vibration of the gra.s.s in which he is crouching.

On one occasion George followed an old tiger through some stubble about three feet high. It had been well trampled down too by tame buffaloes. The tiger had been tracked into the field, and was known to be in it. George was within ten yards of the cunning brute, and although mounted on a tall elephant, and eagerly scanning the thin cover with his sharpest glance, he could not discern the concealed monster. His elephant was within four paces of it, when it sprang up at the charge, giving a mighty roar, which however also served as its death yell, as a bullet from George's trusty gun crashed through its ribs and heart.

Tigers can lay themselves so flat on the ground, and lie so perfectly motionless, that it is often a very easy thing to overlook them. On another occasion, when the Purneah Hunt were out, a tigress that had been shot got under some cover that was trampled down by a line of about twenty elephants. The sportsmen knew that she had been severely wounded, as they could tell by the gouts of blood, but there was no sign of the body. She had disappeared. After a long search, beating the same ground over and over again, an elephant trod on the dead body lying under the trampled canes, and the mahout got down and discovered her lying quite dead. She was a large animal and full grown.

On another occasion George was after a fine male tiger. He was following up fast, but coming to a broad nullah, full of water, he suddenly lost sight of his game. He looked up and down the bank, and on the opposite bank, but could see no traces of the tiger. Looking down, he saw in the water what at first he took to be a large bull-frog. There was not a ripple on the placid stagnant surface of the pool. He marvelled much, and just then his mahout pointed to the supposed bull-frog, and in an excited whisper implored George to fire.

A keener look convinced George that it really was the tiger. It was totally immersed all but the face, and lying so still that not the faintest motion or ripple was perceptible. He fired and inflicted a terrible wound. The tiger bounded madly forward, and George gave it its quietus through the spine as it tried to spring up the opposite bank.