TIGER STORIES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 22, 31 May 1890, Page 19

TIGER STORIES.

Lady Dufferin, in her book, 1 Our Viceregal Life in India.' tells of a tiger which in nine months killed twenty-three men. The whole neighbourhood entreated an English sportsman, who hap]>ened to be in the vicinity, to kill the terrible man-eater. The sportsman spent twenty-four hours in a cage, built so that the sportsman within may shoot at the tiger through the bars, and yet be protected from his attack. A companion joined' him after he had l>een twelve hours in the cage, and they both watched twelve hours more, but no tiger appeared. Then the two men went to sleep. NN hen they woke they found that the tiger had walked round the cage, for his footprints were plainly to be seen through the bars. This same sportsman hunted one day for a tiger, in a jungle so thick that he could see nothing. But he felt sure that a tiger was close to him all the time. At last he made his men examine the ground, and they found tracks which disclosed that the tiger had been following them all day. An English officer elimbed along the trunk of a tree which slanted over a pond, and from the end of it fired at a tiger. He wounded the beast severely, but not so as to prevent it from elimbing into the tree, and walking toward the hunter. To escape he jumped into the pond : the tiger jumped in after him, pulled him to the shore, laid down on him, and began munching at the arm which the man had put up to protect his face. Presently the pain of the wound and the loss of blood caused the tiger to leave the sportsman, and retire a little way into the jungle. The hunter had presence of mind to roll gently back into the water, where he was rescued by some men who happened that way. Lady Dufferin tells a ‘ traveller's tale ’ of a tiger, liecause ‘it is so eery wonderful.' A Mr B was living in a bungalow, from the compound or garden of which a tiger took a man. Mr B and a friend resolved to watch for the brute, but during the night fell asleep on the veranda. The tiger crept up, seized Mr B by the hand, and dragged him across the garden. The friend awoke, ran out. and shot the tiger. The mortally-wounded beast dropped the hand, and rushed after the two men as they ran to the bouse. As Mr B reached the door of the bungalow the tiger knocked him down, and then fell dead on the threshold. Two tigers in the Calcutta Zoo committed suicide by starving themselves to death. They were brought to the Zoo in large travelling eages, and remained therein for several weeks, contented and eating their daily food. But .vs soon as they were removed into permanent cages, they showed their dissatisfaction by refusing to eat. Not even the best mutton could tempt tnem, and they actually died of starvation. If the travelling cages had not l>een sent away, they would have been put back into them, to see if that would have cured their home-sickness.

* What is your idea of a gentleman, Yellowly ?' • A true gentleman always laughs at the joke of a story and never says that he heard it before.’