How Tigers Kill Their Prey

An observer has been among tigers taking notes and has given the results of his observations to the world. As a general rule, he is inclined to doubt the truth of the commonly accepted theory that the tiger, after lurking in ambush, springs on the unexpected victim, and, tearing savagely at his throat, eagerly drinks its blood. This method of attack may sometimes be adopted, but it is far more often the exception than the rule. In approaching his prey the tiger makes the best possible use of cover, but when further concealment is impossible he will course a deer or other swift-footed animal with a quite extraórdinary turn of speed. According to the account published by the Homeward Mail, a sudden dash of two hundred yards in the open is nothing uncommon, and the author mentions the case of one tigress with whom he says he was at one time quite íy aequamted, who used to catch hog or deer almost daily on a perfectly open and burned-up plain. Small animáis are, for the most part, dispatched by a blow of the paw; but in the case of the more bulky the experienced tiger leaping on the back of his victim grips the neck in front of the withers with his jaws, one forepaw clasping the shoulder of the animal and the other fully extended under the throat. Should he be unable to crush the spine with his jaws he will then jerk the head back violently and thereby break the neck. "I have examined," he says, "hundreds of animáis killed by t'igers, and have never yet detected injury to the blood vessels of the throat, but invariably marks attributable to the abovementioned method." In removing his prey the tiger frequently displays almost phenomenal strength and activity. In one case cited by the author a young tigress leaped upon a perpendicular rock some six f eet high with a.man weighing nearly eleven stone in her jaws, and on another occasion a male tiger dragged an exceptionally large buffalo up a bank at least ten feet high. Whether these anecdotes accord or not tvith the individual experiences of other ihikaris they are at least an interesting iddition to the literature of the subject.