rry off a bullock as easily as a tiger does.
On one occasion a panther killed a donkey close to my bungalow, and
carried it off, and had even attempted to jump up the bank of an old ditch
with it, which was five or six feet high, but had failed in the attempt
and abandoned the carcase. But why the panther did not drag the donkey
down to another part of the jungle, where it could easily have dragged the
carcase into it, is difficult to conceive, unless we suppose that these
animals have not, after the failure of one plan, mind enough to try
another. Perhaps this is so, or that they take the pet in a case of
failure and go off in disgust. I imagine that this kind of feeling must
influence tigers, for I once found an uneaten carcase of a bullock wedged
between two rocks. A tiger had killed, high up on a mountain side, and
taken the carcase into the nearest ravine, evidently with the view of
dragging it towards the water further down the hill. On his way he had to
pass through a narrow passage between two rocks, and here the carcase
stuck fast, and he had in vain tried to pull it through, but it had never
occurred to him to pull it out backwards (which he might easily have done
when the carcase was only slightly wedged) and try another route. But,
after all, we must not be surprised, at this, as even the human animal
does not always readily find the solution of a fresh difficulty. Tigers,
it is well known, are good swimmers, and seem to have no difficulty in
taking the carcase of a bullock with them, if I may judge by the fact,
which was told me by a friend, that a tiger once swam eighty yards across
a river in the northern part of Mysore, taking with it the carcase of a
newly killed bullock.

Tiger shooting in the Western Ghauts is always carried out without the aid
of elephants, and it is seldom that one can obtain, even for the first
shot, a fairly safe position. Colonel Peyton, whom I have previously
quoted, says that a man is not safe under sixteen feet from the ground,
but it is seldom that such an elevation can be obtained, as the country is
so steep that, though you have a fair drop on the lower side of the tree,
a tiger from the upper side may easily spring on to you, and is then
generally on your level, or even higher. Of course you select a tree
where, in theory, the tiger must come on the lower side, but tigers will
often take most eccentric courses, and last year, after having taken up a
position on a tree which