HAPTER IX

The Special Qualities of Tiger and Tigress

Now I am going to tell you a few more things about the tiger, from which
you will realize what a wonderful animal he is.

First, the tiger's _size_. The finest specimen of the tiger is the Royal
Bengal tiger. Such a tiger, when full grown, is sometimes seven feet
long, without including the tail; the tail is usually half as long as
the body. The tigress is slightly smaller.

In height a Bengal tiger often measures three and a half feet from the
shoulder to the ground; so his head would be more than four feet from
the ground. Hence, if you take his length into account, you will
understand that the tiger is really the largest feline or animal of the
Cat Tribe.

I do not think that you have often seen a really large tiger in the zoo.
Most of the tigers in a zoo were caught as cubs; that is, the mother or
the father was shot by hunters, and the cubs were captured alive.

Now, just think. If a human child were locked up in a room all his life,
without any exercise, then he would be very stunted and small, even
when he had reached the age of a man. So a tiger cub, brought up in a
cage all its life, never grows to its proper size. For this reason most
of the tigers in a zoo are much smaller than those tigers that grow up
in the jungle.

The most wonderful thing about the tiger is his strength; he is the
strongest animal of the Cat Tribe. That is proved by the way in which he
carries his prey. If the prey be a deer or a man, he seizes the prey in
his jaws by the middle of the body--just as a cat seizes a mouse! And
the tiger carries such a prey in that manner to his den, which may be
more than a mile away.

But a heavy animal, such as a cow, he carries in a different manner.
Yes, a tiger _carries_ away a cow; he does not merely _drag_ it along
the ground, as a lion does. This is the way the tiger carries a cow,
after killing it:

He first seizes the cow in his jaws by the back of its neck. Then he
rears up on his hind legs and swings the cow over his shoulder on to his
back--just as a man swings a loaded sack on to his back. Then the tiger
stands on all four legs again, and trots along with his burden. Of
course, he still holds the neck of the cow in his jaws, just as the man
carrying the sack holds the upper end of the sack in his hand.

I shall now finish with tigers by telling you three stories,--true
stories, of course. From these stories you will understa