# The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma/Mammalia/Class Mammalia/Subclass Eutheria/Order Carnivora/Suborder Fissipedia/Family Felidæ/Genus Felis/Felis tigris

29. Felis tigris. The Tiger.
    Felis tigris, L. Syst. Nat. i, p. 61 (1766); Blyth, Cat. p. 54; Jerdon, Mam. p. 92; D. G. Elliot, Mon. Fel. pl. iii.
Bágh, Sher (female Bághni, Sherni), H.; Náhar, Sela-vágh, H. of Central India; Babr, P.; Mazar, Baluchi; Shinh, Sindhi; Padar suh, Kashmiri; Patayat-bágh, Wahág, Mahr.; Go-vágh, Beng.; Tut, Sad, Hill tribes of Rájmehál; Garúmkúla, Kol.; Lákhra, Uraon; Krodi, Kondh; Kula, Sonthal, Ho and Korku; Púli, Tam., Tel., Mal., and Gond; Púli-redda-púli, Peram-pilli, Tam.; Pedda-púli, Tel.; Perain-púli, Kúdua, Mal.; Kuli, Can.; Nári, Kurg; Pirri, Bürsh, Toda; Tág, Tibetan; Túkt or Tük, Bhot.; Sathong, Lepcha; Keh-va, Limbú; Schi, Aka; Matsá, Garo; Kla, Khasi; Sa, Ragdi, Tekhu, Khudi, Naga; Humpi, Kúki; Sumyo, Abor.; Sü, Khamti; Sirong, Singpho; Kei, Manipuri; Misi, Kachari; Kya, Burmese; Kla, Talain; Khi, Botha-o, Tupuli, Karen; Htso, Shan; Rimau, Harimau, Malay.
​Pupil round. Hair of the cheeks from behind the ears round the sides of the neck considerably lengthened in adult males, so as to form a ruff. Hair of body short and close (but varying in length somewhat with the season). Tail about half the length of the head and body, tapering gradually, not tufted at the end. Tail vertebrae 22 to 26.
The skull is very massive and heavy, the zygomatic arches excessively wide and strong, and the crests for attachment of the muscles highly developed. On an average the skull is even larger, wider, and more massive than that of the lion. The facial surface is considerably more convex, the maxillary bones terminate posteriorly between the orbits in front of the nasals, and the lower surface of the presphenoid in the roof of the posterior nares is much broader than in the lion, and is generally raised into a ridge along the middle. The lower surface of the mandible is nearly straight to near the angle, then slightly concave. Consequently the skull of a tiger, with the lower jaw attached, rests firmly on a flat surface, whilst the posterior portion of the skull nowhere touches the surface. This is not the case with any other great feline, except perhaps the jaguar.
Colour. Ground-colour, above and on the sides, varying from pale rufous to brownish yellow, below white, striped transversely with black throughout the head and body. The tail is marked with black rings. Ears black outside, with a large white spot on each. The ground-colour is much more rufous in some animals than ia others, and forest tigers are probably darker and redder than those inhabiting the thin jungles of Central and Southern India. Young animals, too, are more brightly coloured than old. The young are born striped. Both black and albino tigers have been met with, though both are very rare. Mr. C. T. Buckland tells me that he once saw a black tiger that had been shot near Chittagong; whilst an albino tiger was exhibited in London, at Exeter Change, early in the century, and figured by Griffith.
Dimensions. Adult males measure 5½ to 6½ feet from nose to insertion of tail, the tail being about 3 feet long. In a male 9 feet 4 inches long, measured by Tickell, the head was 16 inches, neck 12, body 4 feet, tail 3 feet 2 inches. Females measure about 5 to 5½ feet from nose to rump. The height at the shoulder is about 3 feet to 3 feet 6 inches. The usual measurement of tigers by sportsmen is from the nose over the curves of the head and back and along the tail to the tip. Thus measured full-grown tigers are generally 9 to 10 feet long, tigresses 8 to 9; but tigers have been killed 12 feet in length, and I myself shot an apparently full-grown tigress only 7 feet 6 inches long, and another specimen that had cubs with her measured only 7 feet 8 inches. The skull ​of a male tiger 9 feet 7 inches long measured 13 inches in extreme length, 12 in basal length, and 9 in breadth across the zygomatic arches; that of a large Nepal tigress 10 inches in extreme length by 7·8 in zygomatic breadth. But an enormous skull from Purneah measures according to Sterndale 15·25 by 10·5. Sanderson found a bulky, well-fed male tiger to weigh 25 stone (350 lbs.), and Elliot gives the weight of two large male tigers as 360 and 380 lbs., aud of a large tigress 240 lbs. Forsyth gives much higher weights, but it is not clear whether he actually weighed tlie animals.
Distribution. Throughout India, Burma, and other parts of South-eastern Asia, Java, and Sumatra, but not Ceylon, nor, it is said, Borneo. The tiger occurs in suitable localities throughout a great part of Central Asia, and is found in the Valley of the Amur, the Altai Mouurains, around Lob Nor in Eastern Turkestan, about the Sea of Aral, on the Murgháb near Herat, on the southern coast of the Caspian (Hyrcania), and in the Caucasus, but not in Tibet, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, or Persia south of the Elburz Mountains on the Caspian.
In India tigers still occur wherever large tracts of forest or grass-jungle exist; but within the last 20 or 30 years the number of these destructive animals has been greatly reduced, and they have now become scarce, or have even in some cases disappeared entirely in parts of the country where they formerly were common. This has been the case especially throughout a large area of the Central Provinces, in many parts of Bengal, and several districts of the Bombay Presidency. In the forests at the base of the Himalayas tigers are common, and they ascend the hills occasionally to an elevation of 6000 or 7000 feet, but none are found in the interior of the mountains. The species is entirely wanting throughout Baluchistan, Afghanistan, and the other countries due west of India, and is only found in a few places in Upper Sind aud the western Punjab. It is wanting in Lower Sind and Cutch. To the eastward, in Assam and Burma, tigers are generally distributed.
The absence of tigers in Ceylon would seem to indicate that this animal has only recently migrated into Southern India, more recently than most of the other mammals, the majority of which are found on both sides of Palk Straits.
Habits. Eor a full account of the habits of tigers, on which more has been written than probably on any other wild animal, reference may be made to numerous works by Indian sportsmen. Foremost amongst these are Sir J. Fayrer's 'The Royal Tiger of Bengal,' Sterndale's 'Seonee' and 'Natural History of Indian Mammalia,' Forsyth's admirable 'Highlands of Central India,' Sanderson's equally accurate 'Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India,' and McMaster's 'Notes on Jerdon's Mammals of India.' The first gives an account of the tiger in the grass-jungles and swamps of the Ganges valley, the second and third describe the animal haunting the forests of the Central Provinces, the fourth writer's experience was mainly gained in Mysore, and that of the fifth in the hills of Southern India.
​Tigers are monogamous. The period of gestation is about 14 to 15 weeks, and from 2 to 5 young, and occasionally it is said even 6, are produced at one time. I have on more than one occasion known four cubs to be cut out from a tigress's body after death. There is no particular season for breeding. Young cubs are found at all times of the year. The tigress is said to avoid the male when about to bring forth, and to hide her young from him; but tigers are occasionally, though not often, seen accompanying tigresses and cubs. The young remain with the mother until nearly or quite full-grown; and when more than two tigers are found consorting together, the party consists in general of a tigress and her full-grown offspring, the old tiger occasionally associating with his family also. Forsyth observes that a tigress cannot have young more frequently than once in three years, because the cubs take about that time to attain their full growth.
These animals are usually found solitary or in pairs, less frequently in parties of from three to six. They remain at rest during the day, and roam about at night in search of food. Their wanderings are considerable, and frequently extend to many miles in the course of the night, a preference being given to well-beaten tracks or sandy beds of streams. On these, in the early morning, every incident of the night's adventures may be traced by an experienced tracker. The tiger sometimes continues his stroll in the early morning, and his movements, as Forsyth remarks, "may often be traced up to eight or nine o'clock by the voices of monkeys and peafowl, the chatter of crows and small birds, and the bark of sambar and spotted deer." The alarm-cries of all these animals are quite peculiar and different from their ordinary calls; but it must be remembered that the cause of their alarm may be a leopard, a wild cat, a bear, a dog, or even in some cases a man, and not necessarily a tiger.
The tiger usually takes up his abode for the day in deep shade, especially in the hot season, and in general near water under a dense bush or tree, in high green grass, or in thick low cover such as green rushes, tamarisk, or some of the other plants that grow in the beds of streams. Not unfrequently a high bank affords him the cool shade he loves, and in rocky parts of the country caves are frequently resorted to; where ruins exist in jungle they are often a favourite abode. A well-known habit of all wild animals, but especially remarked in the case of the tiger, is the regularity with which paiticular haunts are selected in preference to others that appear equally well suited. Some one patch of high nul grass near the river-bank or on the edge of the swamp, one dense thicket of jhow (Tamarix) ov jáman (Eugenia) amongst a dozen apparently similar in a stream-bed, one especial pile of rocks amongst hundreds along the hill-side, will be the resort year after year of a tiger, and when the occupant is shot, another, after a brief interval, takes his place.
Tigers, especially in the cold and wet seasons, when there is abundance of cover and water, are great wanderers, roaming from ​Place to place, though probably keeping in general within an area of 15 or 20 miles in diameter. In the hot season from March to June their range is usually more restricted, as vegetation is dried up or burnt except near the few spots where water is still found.
As has already been remarked, tigers are very much less in the habit of roaring than lions are. Where the latter are common scarcely an evening passes without their being repeatedly heard. I have often been in places where tigers were equally abundant, but it is an exception for their roaring to attract attention. Their usual call is very similar to that of the lion, a prolonged moaning, thrilling sound, repeated twice or thrice, becoming louder and quicker, and ending with three or four repetitions of the last portion of it. Besides this, there is a peculiar loud "woof" produced when the animal is disturbed or surprised, a growl that it utters when provoked, and the well-known guttural sound of rage repeated two or three times when it charges. When hit by a bullet a tiger generally roars, but tigresses, at all events, very often do not; I have on three occasions at least known a tigress receive a mortal wound and pass on without making a sound.
Tigers swim well and take readily to water, even crossing arms of the sea. They but rarely ascend trees, and appear quite incapable of climbing a vertical stem, large or small, it is true that they have been knovvn to take men out of trees, from heights it is said of even 18 or 20 feet; but such cases are always due to some peculiarity in the tree, a sloping trunk, or a fork 8 or 10 feet from the ground, from which the animal can get a fresh start. As a rule a tiger, like other mammals, pays no attention to men in a tree even a very few feet from the ground, if they do not move or speak.
In fact tigers are much less addicted to springing than is popularly supposed, and rarely move their hind legs off the ground except to clear an obstacle. Still they are capable of springing some distance. They have a habit, like cats, of scratching wood, and often show a predilection for the trunk of a particular tree, on which the marks of their claws may be seen up to a height of 10 or, it is said, 12 feet.
The ordinary game-eating tiger of the forest lives mainly on deer and pigs, and avoids the neighbourhood of human habitations. Almost all tigers, however, occasionally kill cattle. The wild animals commonly eaten by tigers are pigs, deer of all kinds, nylgai, four-horned antelope, and porcupines. The last are evidently a common prey. I have repeatedly, in the Central Provinces, when skinning tigers, found fragments of porcupine-quill encysted beneath the sldn. Peafowl may be slain at times, but more often, I think, by leopards than by tigers, and the same may be said of monkeys. Bears, though not often attacked, occasionally fall ​victims; I have more than once seen unmistakable remains of a bear that had been devoured; and Sanderson relates an instance of a tiger that was said to have taken habitually to the slaughter of bears for food. Young gaur are occasionally killed, but the full-grown animal is more than a match for most tigers. Instances are said to have been known of even young elephants being attacked, one such is mentioned by McMaster. In fact a hungry tiger will probably kill any other animal he can for food. He is said to have been observed catching and eating frogs; and Mr. Simson found tigers in Eastern Bengal, during inundations, feeding upon fish, tortoises, crocodiles, and large lizards, and he once killed a tiger the pouch of which was crammed with grasshoppers or locusts. It is not to be supposed that the tiger's prey is killed without a struggle, and the more powerful animals sometimes beat off their assailants, whilst instances have been recorded in which large boars have killed tigers that attacked them, the two having in some cases been found dead together.
Great numbers of domestic animals are killed by tigers annually, and many of the latter appear to live entirely upon cattle. Oxen are the ordinary prey of the catlle-eating tiger, who is often an older animal than the game-killer, having become by long experience more cunning and less afraid of man. Tigresses with cubs also often quarter themselves upon a village and subsist in luxury on the flocks and herds of the villagers. Sheep and goats are not so often attacked, tigers having a distinct preference for beef, but ponies, and even horses and camels, are occasionally killed. Buffaloes in a herd are fully able to defend themselves, and generally attack a tiger, many incidents being recorded in which they have rescued their herdsman; but tigers often kill young buffaloes if they are found away from the herd.
There has been much discussion as to the manner in which the tiger kills its prey. The popular notion was, and probably still is, that the tiger springs upon its victim from a distance, and either kills the animal by one blow of its paw, or tears the throat with its teeth and sucks the blood. All this is certainly incorrect, so far, at all events, as cattle are concerned; small animals may perhaps be killed by a blow of the paw. I have seen many oxen that had been killed by tigers, and in numerous cases (always, I think, when I ascertained the point) the neck had been broken, whilst in several instances, despite the marks of fangs upon the throat, the great blood-vessels of the neck were untouched, and claw-marks were confined to scratches on the forequarters. All these details agree with the description given by Sanderson from the accounts received from herdsmen. According to these, the tiger does not spring upon his prey: "clutching the bullock's forequarters with his paws, one being generally over the shoulder, he seizes the throat in his jaws from underneath and turns it upwards and over, sometimes springing to the far side in doing so, to throw the bullock over and give the wrench which dislocates its neck. This is frequently done so quickly that the tiger, if timid, is in retreat again before the herdsman ​can turn round." It is probable that with smaller animals the tiger does not always take the trouble to break the neck, and in the case of large beasts such as buffaloes and gaur, which he is unable to overthrow, he occasionally hamstrings them, I think by a blow with his claws, but am not sure. I have twice known instances in which buffaloes were left hamstrung by tigers. Tigers sometimes undoubtedly kill or disable by the fearful blows they can give with their paws, but the above is, I believe, their usual plan of killing oxen.
Sterndale confirms Sanderson's account, and also points out that a tiger very rarely springs upon his prey; he probably takes advantage of the momemtary paralysis produced by his appearance to make a short rush and to seize the animal he intends to devour. He generally stalks as near as he can, but he has been seen to gallop after animals for some distance before seizing one of them.
I quite agree with Sanderson, who regards "the venerable belief in tigers sucking the blood of their victims" as one of the numerous myths that have collected around beasts of prey in the course of ages.
If an animal is struck down in the daytime, the body may be dragged some distance, but is usually left untouched till evening. At or soon after nightfall, or occasionally in quiet places before sundown, the tiger returns to the kill (known as ghara or mara), and, if the spot is open or otherwise unsuited for his repast, drags the body to a more convenient place. The enormous muscular power of the tiger is shown by the way in which he can transport large carcases of oxen or buffaloes over rough ground, up and down steep banks and through thick bushes. He sometimes lifts the body completely off the ground; Sanderson mentions an instance in which a bullock, weighing about 400 lbs., was thus carried for 300 yards. He almost always commences by eating the intestines and hindquarters. As a rule he remains near the kill, sometimes rushing out upon any intruder and driving away jackals, vultures, and other carrion-feeders; but more often he hides the carcase under bushes or leaves, and retires to a neighbouring thicket beside water. If very hungry, a tiger will devour both hindquarters the first night. If undisturbed, he generally remains about three days near the carcase, feeding at intervals. In one case, so far as I could learn, a large ox was completely devoured in 48 hours, only a few fragmeuts of bones and the contents of the stomach being left. Forsyth says that a tiger which lives entirely on cattle kills an ox about once in five days, and passes about two days after finishing his last victim without looking about for food, though he will strike down another quarry if it comes near him. Young tigers are more destructive than older animals, and when one gets amongst a herd of cattle, he frequently kills several, apparently in pure wantonness. A tigress with cubs, too, is frequently very destructive, partly, it is said, in order to teach the young tigers to kill their own prey. An animal that has been fired at, especially if he has been wounded, when returning to the kill, will frequently never again return to the body of his prey, but kill afresh when hungry.
​It is well known that, although tigers as a rule kill their own food, they do not disdain carrion; in numerous instances they have been known to eat animals killed by sportsmen and even bullocks that had died of disease. Cases are even on record in which a tiger that had been shot has been devoured by another of his own species.
The ordinary game- or cattle-eating tiger is the greatest of cowards in the presence of man, and often allows himself to be pelted off from the animal he has seized. Sterndale mentions a case in which a herdsman laid his heavy iron-bound staff with impunity across the back of a tiger who had seized one of his cows; and I once found two young children, the eldest not more than 8 or 9 years old, left in jungle to drive a tiger away from the body of a bullock he had killed, and to prevent his eating it or dragging it away. The half-wild inhabitants of the Indian forests have but little fear of ordinary tigers; and after some 20 years' wanderings in large part through tracts infested with tigers, I agree with Forsyth that, except in the haunts of a man-eater, there is little danger in traversing any part of the jungles. Bears are, I think, more to be feared than tigers. The only tigers not being man-eaters that are dangerous are tigresses with young cubs, and occasionally a hungry tiger who has just killed his prey. Of course this only refers to unwounded tigers; a tiger that has been wounded will usually attack any one who approaches him, but even he will not charge home against a body of men, and one successful method of shooting tigers and following them when wounded is founded on this circumstance.
The man-eater is, to quote Forsyth, "a tiger who has got very fat and heavy, or very old, or who has been disabled by a wound, or a tigress who has had to bring up young cubs where other game is scarce. All these take naturally to man, who is the easiest animal of all to kill, as soon as failure with other prey brings on the pangs of hunger." A tiger that has once taken to man-eating will probably, having got over his innate fear of the human species, continue to live upon the same prey, though it is the exception for even man-eaters to confine themsehes to human food. Still a few do so to a great extent, and a fearful scourge such a tiger becomes. The destruction of human life by tigers is still considerable in India, and the whole takes place in comparatively thinly peopled portions of the couutry. Thus in Lower Bengal alone in six years 1860–66, 4218 persons were killed by these animals. In all probability nearly the whole destruction was caused by a very small percentage of the tigers inhabiting the country.
Forsyth says that great grazing districts, into which cattle come for a limited season only, are always the worst for producing man-eating tigers. There is much reason for believing that a tigress, who has taken to preying upon man, brings up her cubs to the same mode of life. A man-eater generally becomes cunning and suspicious beyond all ordinary tigers, and around this, the most terrible of all wild animals, myths and legends centre until it is difficult to know what is true and what is false. Many of the ​wolf-legends of Europe may be found repeated and intensified in connection with the Indian tiger. Foremost among these tales is of course the wehr-wolf superstition—a belief that certain men have the magical power to transmute themselves at will into wild beasts. But the most remarkable of all is the creed, universal in the Central Provinces and generally prevalent, I believe, throughout India, that the spirits of those men who have been killed by a tiger attend him and sit upon his head, and that they not only warn him against danger, but, entertaining malice against their fellow-men, aid him to destroy them. This superstition exists amongst many races.
Tigers or representations of tigers are actual objects of adoration, or, to speak more correctly, propitiation, amongst some of the wilder tribes of the Indian Peninsula; and one form of oath in Courts of Justice is, or was formerly, administered on a tiger's skin. Various parts of the animal, such as the front teeth, the claws, the whiskers, and the rudimentary clavicles (birnukh), are preserved as amulets and charms. The whiskers, Jerdon says, in some parts of Southern India are considered to endow the fortunate possessor with unlimited power over the opposite sex. In other parts they are regarded as a deadly poison, and are destroyed as soon as a tiger is killed.
To one peculiar and wide-spread myth, the relations between tigers or lions and jackals, some reference will be found under the head of the latter.
The destruction of so dangerous an animal as the tiger is naturally one of the principal objects both of the native shikári, who kills for the reward given by Government, and varying from Rs. 5 to Rs. 50 in different districts, and of the European sportsman. The common native plan, adopted occasionally by Europeans, is to build a platform, or machán, in a tree, either close to the carcase of an animal that has been killed by a tiger, or to a spot where a live animal, usually a bullock or young buffalo, is tied up as a bait, and to shoot the tiger when he comes to feed on the carcase or to seize the bullock. Another system, adopted by Europeans from Indian chiefs, is to drive the jungles with a line of elephants, the sportsmen shooting from howdahs. This is often almost the only practicable plan in the great plains of Bengal and Upper India, which are covered with grass from 8 to 20 feet high.
In the smaller jungle-patches of Central and Southern India, tiger-shooting is chiefly attempted in the hot season, and the tiger is either driven by beaters past a tree on which the sportsman sits, or followed up, either on an elephant or on foot. Baits, usually young buffaloes, are tied out in selected spots, in order to induce the tiger to kill, and remain during the heat of the day in places convenient for finding him; and native trackers, many of whom could probably vie with the far-famed American Indians themselves, are employed to follow up the animal and ascertain where it is lying. A full account of this method is given by Forsyth in the 'Highlands of Central India.' Occasionally, especially when a ​tiger has been wounded, a herd of buffaloes are employed to drive him out of the cover, which they do very effectually, charging him in a body if he does not retreat.
In some parts of Southern India a plan is adopted of enclosing a small area of jungle, into which a tiger has been traced, by nets. The animal is then speared or shot when occasion offers. A full account of this method is given by Sanderson in the work already quoted. According to Jerdon, in the Wynaad tigers are driven into a net and speared by a particular class of natives.
It would be impossible to notice all the methods adopted for destroying tigers. In some parts of the country traps are used, but the cage-trap, though often successful in capturing panthers, is seldom so with tigers. Tigers are occasionally taken in pitfalls. A kind of figure-of-4 trap with a heavy platform loaded with stones, that falls upon the tiger and crushes him, is used in parts of Orissa and, I believe, elsewhere. In Burma a bow is set with a poisoned dart, and let off by a string across the path. Spring-guns have also been used. Poisoning the carcase of an animal killed by a tiger is also resorted to in some cases, strychnine being chiefly used for the purpose by Europeans, but it is not always effective.
The age to which tigers live is not clearly ascertained. Sanderson mentions an instance in which he killed a large cattle-eating tiger that had been known to haunt a particular group of villages for twenty years. This animal showed no signs of age except that his coat was becoming light-coloured.
Tigers captured young are easily tamed, and many of the adult animals in menageries are perfectly good-tempered, and fond of being noticed and caressed by those whom they know. They have repeatedly bred in confinement, though not so freely as lions, and the cubs more rarely survive.
* ↑ Jerdon is in error in stating that the pupil is vertical.
* ↑ Griffith's 'Cuvier,' ii, p. 444.
* ↑ A very good account of the measurements of tigers is given in Sterndale's 'Mammalia of India,' pp. 162, 527. See also Sir J. Fayrer, 'Nature,' June 27th, 1878, xviii, p. 219. By both tigers measuring over 12 feet are recorded. Tickell, in his MS. notes, states that he once saw a tiger that measured 11 feet 9 inches.
* ↑ It is true that my own experience was at not quite the same time of the year. I have been repeatedly in jungles inhabited by tigers from November till June, and only in lion-haunted tracts in July and August. But all travellers notice the noisiness of lions.