TIGRESS UNDER TABLE CAUSES PANDEMONIUM

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6812, 16 January 1929, Page 4

TIGRESS UNDER TABLE CAUSES PANDEMONIUM

SHOT THROUGH HOLE IN ROOF. An extraordinary encounter with a tigress, which paid an unofficial visit to a forest officer in the Nallamalais (Kurpool) district of Madras, India, is described in the Indian Forest Ranger. While on tour in the jungle, Mr A. Wiinbush, conservator of forests for Madras Presidency, along with another conservator and two district forest officers, was staying in a little forest rest house.

One evening after sundown, when some of the party were enjoying their baths, Mr Wimbush was informed by a villager that “a large striped animal .had just jumped on to the verandah.” Thinking that it could be nothing more than a piedog, he was amazed to find a tigress seated comfortably in one of the rooms under the table, on which a petrol lamp was burning! Retreating for his rifle, ho raised the alarm, and a shot was fired through the open door. Pandemonium followed. The tigress knocked over the furniture and the lamp, which fortunately went out. The door of the. room was hurriedly closed' and the party crept round to another door, pushing it cautiously open, but could not sec the tigress until one of them spotted her tail. She had evidently been hit and was crouching behind the door. ... Securing a ladder, the party climbed to the roof and made a hole in the thatch, through which the tigress was shot dead. The tigress was old and in poor condition, owing to wounds caused through fighting, and possibly had been driven to attempt man-eating. Mrs. Wimbush (the conservator’s wife), was strolling recently in the Ganjam district of Madras, accompanied by sin ayah a dog and two children. A panther came out of the forest, seized the dog, and dashed off into the jungle. Mrs. Wimbush shouted, waved her parasol—having no more formidable weapon —and the panther dropped the dog and cleared off.