mere sake of killing, and that he kills
more animals than he can eat, just for the mere fun of killing.

That is not true. A tiger is not really "bloodthirsty" in that way, as I
shall explain to you presently. A tiger never kills for the mere fun of
killing. Some men and some naughty boys do that! They think it great
sport to kill harmless wild animals, which they cannot possibly eat or
use in any way; and some naughty boys kill frogs and lizards and other
small animals, just for the mere "fun" of killing, as they call it.

[Illustration: Tiger]

A tiger never does that--and he is supposed to be the worst animal of
all! For one thing, a tiger is not such a fool as to kill his prey for
the mere sake of killing. Men formerly ate the flesh of the American
bison, or buffalo, as it was generally called. But then they killed off
whole herds of these buffaloes. So now there are no more buffaloes left
for food in those places. A tiger is wiser. He does not destroy his own
food supply needlessly.

People are also wrong when they say that a tiger is "cruel," and that he
tortures his prey before killing it outright. That is not true of the
tiger. In fact, hardly any animal is _needlessly_ cruel, as some men and
naughty boys are--for instance, naughty boys who torture frogs and
lizards and then kill them.

It is true that a _tigress_ does worry her prey before killing it. But
why does she do so? Simply to teach her cubs how to catch and kill the
prey, so as to provide food for themselves when they grow up. I shall
explain that fully presently. So please remember this once for all:
hardly any animal is _needlessly_ cruel or bloodthirsty.

"But a cat does worry a mouse, before killing it," you may object. "Is
not that needless cruelty?"

That seems quite true. But there is a reason for it: the cat first began
to do that to teach her kittens how to catch mice, when she was a wild
animal in the fields. Once upon a time the cat was a wild animal, but
now people have tamed it into a domestic animal. So the cat still
retains some of its wild habits.

But you will understand all that when I tell you more fully about the
tiger, which is the largest and strongest animal of the Cat Tribe.

_The Life History of the Tiger Family_

I shall describe to you the actual life of a tiger family in the jungle.
A tiger family consists of the father, the mother, and from two to four
cubs. Three is the usual number of children that a tiger an