CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10428, 28 April 1897, Page 3

CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

HOW WE TRAPPED A TIGER.

A Scottish lady in Travancore, in a letter to her parents in Edinburgh, gives the following graphic description of trapping a tiger :— Some time ago I told you about the dead tiger which It lam and I viewed from our verandah. Now I must tell you about a living ono I saw a few days ago. For some months past a number of our cattle had been killed and devoured by a tiger, all efforts to stalk him being unsuccessful. Hamish determined to erect a trap for the capture of Master Stripes. By this means the animal has just been caught, and I will now try and describe tho trap, or rather cage with a trap-door, which Hamish designed, and got carpenters to make under his supervision. The trap is a huge affair, 12 feet long, 4 feet high, and 4 feet wide, made of strong wooden bars, with a small room partitioned off at one end, in which a live goat was placed as a bait, but in perfect safety. In addition to this inducement for tbe tiger to outer the trap, a small cattle shed was erected adjoining and forming part of the trap. In this shed there were always kept at night two or three cows, and the door securely locked, so that harm could not befall them. All this was easy enough, but whore the ingenuity comes in is in tho mechanism of the (rap-door. This was no easy matter to construct with tho ordinary artisans at our command j it was, however,

successfully accomplished. The apparatus which works the trapdoor is simple, but vory effective, and I shall try my best to doscribe it. The heavy door is grooved in a frame and suspended and kept in that position by a beam, one end of which is fastened to the door, and at the other end of the beam there is a small but strong connecting-rod about an incb and a-half in diameter, which enters through the roof and passes down to the floor of the cage, where it rests on a sharppointed pin, the weight ot the door keeping it firmly in i*B proper position. When the tiger enters he naturally goes for the goat, and in doiim so mast knock against the lever and displuce it, setting the door free, the latter slips down, and thus the / tiger unintentionally imprisons himself. The trap was placed in » favourable position, about balf-amile from our bungalow, and close to the road we pass almost daily. It was set every evening for months past, always ready for the tiger's reception ; but the wary animal, though his marks were seen close to the spot on more than one occasion, could not be enticed to enter— another version of the "spider and the fly." We had almost given up hope of ever securing him. But" everything comes to him who waits," and about six o'clock on Wednesday morning, as wo were at early tea, one of the conductor came rushing up announcing that a tiger was in the trap. Hamish asked him whether it was a tiger or a small leopard. He replied that he could not say, as the animal roared so loudly that the people were afraid to go near the cago. We quickly finished our repast and hurried to the scene, and there, sure enough, was a magnificent tiger suddenly deprived of his liberty, who only a short timo before was monarch of all he surveyed. As we approached to within a foot or two of his new domain, though imprisoned, he growled in a loud and defiant manner, and our presence, including that of a largo numbor of natives, seemed to enrage him all tho more. In his attempts to regain his liberty he made several vicious springs at us, at the same time striking heavily against the sideß of the cage. He repoated these violent attacks several times, and continued his terrific growls, opening his mouth widely, showing huge, formidable teeth, and glaring fiercely all round. I must say he did look a savage wild beast. After this futile demonstration of strength, Hainish remarked that it was time to put an end to his destructive career. So I left the scene, and Hamish sent a bullet through his head, and the animal dropped down dead. The length of the tiger from the point of his nose to the tip of his toil was 10 foot 11 inches, almost a record. To realise what a fierce and powerful animal a tiger is you must be close to one newly captured from the jungle, and hear his infuriated growls and see his furious attempts to regain his

REVENGEFUL SPARROWS. An extraordinary tale of the revenge of swallows upon some sparrows, which had robbed them of their nest, is told by a correspondent of a German paper. The owner of a garden outside Stuttgart observed with surprise that there wai no opening in the nest which soino swallows had built under a beam in his summer-house. Eager to, find the reason of the absence of a door in the swallows' family dwelling, he took a ladder and inspected the nest Cutting it open with his pooket knife, he found in it five little sparrow fledglings, all of theui dead. It was evident that the swallows, by way of punishing the invaders who had seized their house, had taken advantage of the absence of the father and mother sparrows, and bad deliberately " masoned" up the opening in the nest, thereby stifling I to death the young brood of the robber birds.

BY A THREAD. How much may depend upon the merest trifle was well illustrated at a Welsh slate quarry not long ago. It was an adventure which the person concerned would not care to repeat. He was working a large crane which stood on the brink of one of the great chasms from which the slate rock is hoisted. His duty was to catch hold of the big hook depending from the end of the Chain as it swung over the bank and attach it to the crate to be sont back into the pit. i Standing upon the very edge he reached out to catch the hook, which dangled near him. It was cold weather, and he wore thick buckskin gloves. The hook slipped from him as he leaned out, but caught in the fastening of the glove. The next moment he was swung off his feet and carried out into giddy space, with his life depending on the glove's holding fast. His whole weight hung on that button, and there was a clear 175 ft of space between him and the floor of rock below. The moments that passed before the chain could be swung back over the bank seemed like hours to him, but he got there at last safe and sound. He explained that he did not dare to move his hand in the glove to attempt to catch the hook with bis fingers for fear the change of position would loosen the button so that it would give way. His presence of mind in keeping as still as possible may have helped not a little to keep the slender thread from breaking.