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(1) Anecdotes of Big Cats and other Beasts (2) The Life Story of a Tiger

Abstract

(i) IT has been suggested that one reason for the JL greater prevalence of man-eating tigers in India, as compared with man-eating lions in Africa, is due to the superiority in courage of the natives of the latter over most of those of the former country. Whatever may be the truth of this assertion as regards India, it most certainly does not apply to Burma, where, according to Mr. Wilson, it is a common practice for the relatives or neighbours of a person carried off by a tiger to pursue the murderer then and there, armed only with spears, or other primitive weapons, in order to recover the body. Some faint idea of the courage necessary for such a primitive expedition may be gleaned, observes the author, by anyone who tries to take a bone from a savage dog. In one instance recorded in Mr. Wilson's book four old men started to rescue the body of the grand-daughter of one of the party, and succeeded in badly wounding the tiger, although with the death of one of the heroic four, and the maiming of a second. But this act of heroism is exceeded in a case where the first of a party of three young girls walking in single file through the jungle was seized and carried off by a tiger. Nothing daunted, the second girl, seizing a chopper from the one behind her, rushed in pursuit, and actually killed the striped marauder by a rain of blows on its head. It is true that both anecdotes rest on native testimony, but they seem to have the impress of truth.

(1) Anecdotes of Big Cats and other Beasts.

By David Wilson. Pp. viii + 312. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1910.) Price 6s.

(2) The Life Story of a Tiger.

By Lt.-Col. A. F. Mockler-Ferryman. Pp. iv + 253. (London: A. and C. Black, 1910.) Price 3s. 6d.

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L., R. (1) Anecdotes of Big Cats and other Beasts (2) The Life Story of a Tiger. Nature 85, 333–334 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/085333b0

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