f the jungle trees. In one case of this kind,
though I could see the tiger when it half raised itself up--it had been
wounded in the back--I failed to pick it up the moment it sank back into
the leaves; and my shikari told mo of another similar case he had seen
when there was a similar flickering light. But even without that source of
confusion to the sight a tiger is extremely difficult to see, as difficult
as a hare in a ploughed field, or perhaps more so. On one occasion Rama
Gouda said to me, when we were attacking a wounded tiger, or rather
tigress in the jungle, "There is the tiger." "What!" I said, "that thing
looking like a stone?" The light was bad. We both supposed it to be dead,
but I said, "I suppose I had better take a shot at it," and did so, and,
when the smoke cleared away, found that the tiger had removed. Then a
native went forward and gently parted the reeds with his hands, and showed
me the tigress--which had moved about twenty yards--on her side, and
evidently in a dying condition. She was now only a few yards from me, and
I fired at her, and she rolled over and died. As it happened, I do not
think that I ran much risk, but one never can exactly tell how much
vitality a dying tiger has, and in the case previously alluded to I have
no doubt that the tiger must have died immediately after he made his fatal
attack on the party.

It is owing obviously to their great power of concealment that tigers are
so very rarely ever seen by accident, and Mr. Sanderson says that during
some years of wandering in tigerish localities he has only come upon them
accidentally about half a dozen times, and my own experience, and that of
other sportsmen to whom I have spoken, quite confirms this. But I am
persuaded that a native can see a tiger much more readily than a European,
and the former have, I think, much better distinguishing power. For
instance, a European has great difficulty in seeing a green pigeon in a
green tree till the bird moves, while a native seems to have no such
difficulty. My own sight is, or rather was, very good, but I found on one
occasion, when I was stalked by a tiger, that it was most provokingly
defective as compared with that of a native. The incident occurred in this
way. In cloudy weather, during a break in the monsoon, I was beating a
ravine for game, and had sent my second gun-carrier with the beaters. As
the beat was drawing to a close, I heard a sambur deer belling at the head
of a ravi