Morning journal and courier., 1886-02-27
THE FEROCIOUS BEAUTY or The Jungles and Forests of India
 and Rurmah.
lChicaeO Herald1

lChlcago Herald
 A short, thick-set man with dark mus tache, in which the gray hairs were begin ming to appear pretty thickIy, sat in the TO- tunda of the Palmer House the other evening, was anything very remarkable in his appear ance, but he was, all the same, one of the best known shikarfis of the far East, famous throughout India and Burmah as the most deadly tiger shot since the days of Gordon Cumming. Wherever the camp fire is lit and the days sport is being talked over some anecdote of 'tJack'' Alger is sure to be introduced.
 My first acquaintance with the tiger in his natural state, , said MT. Alger, in reply to a request for a "varn" " ''was made in the jungles of the Terai. They are hard beasts to tackle, especially the man-eaters, and those who have engaged in tiger shooting, either on many shots the brute sometimes takes. Where population is exceedingly scarce the tiger loses much of his skulking hiding dis position, and attacks his prey in the open. I knew once of a lad herding cattle who was pursued over a meadow and through the herd, and was killed by the tiger who had begun to eat him, when scared away by the villagers. I saw the body; it lay in the midst of an open field, at least 200 yards from any cover. It was disemboweled, with the chest torn wide open, but the face was as that of one who lies in pleasant sleep.
 "The enormous forearm of the tiger has attracted attention. You have seen a cat pat 8 dead mouse on the face of dog that was teasing her, and it is easy to understand what tremendous blow, tiger could give in the same manner, but I believe it mis- take to suppose that he strikes down his prey with his paw He strikes in self defense and when fighting, but not when seizing his vic tim. I have seen many carcasses of deer, cattle, buffaloes and horses which had been kill ed by tigers, and they all had the same ap- pearance-four deep holes at the back of the neck made by the animals incisor teeth; no other mark, and of course if the tiger had begun to feed on the body it was extensively Iacerated. And if the prey had struggled much and had succeeded in drag ging the tiger few yards the chest and forelegs would bear the impression of the claws and the tremendous grip, but these, as far as my experience goes, were excep tional cases.
 ''It is evident that the tiger, in seizing his prey, rushes onto its back, grips the neck with his jaws as with wise, and with his arms conGning the animals struggles, lies there upon its victim until it is suffo- cated. With human being it is different. A tiger has been seen to seize and carry off man by the neck, or the arm, or thigh, in differently.
 'I was out once after tiger on foot, and, having wounded him severely; was search ing for him in the jungle with a number of beaters Three times we came upon him, and each time he broke cover by charging through the mob of us. Once he struck man on the chest, knocking him over, and scratching him severely. Next time he seized one of the beaters in his jaws, by the thigh, giving him rapid shake and passing on But these are all cases in which the animal was acting in self-defense, or in re- taliation. What have said before refers to it's usual mode of capturing food.
 'We are told in natural history" books that the tiger disdains to touch carrion This is not so. The same thing is said in regard to the eagle, and is equally erroneous. The lion also is, believe, as little scrupulous as any other cat in this particular. Ihave told you how the tiger captures and kills his prey When dead, if the body be conven- ient to his covert he lets it remain if it be too far out in the open it is dragged further toward the jungle and there lies until dawn Sometimes the body is disemboweled after being removed a little way and is then drawn away to some hidden spot. A tiger has been seen to disembowel goat, holding it by the throat, lying on it's back underneath the body it's hind claws He appears to prefer trump steak, or round, to any other portion. These are almost always the first part eaten then the ribs, rarely the forequarters and never, within my knowledge, the head.
 q cannot call to mind having met in any
 
 tigers cries. The snarling and growling of the animal when 'stirrediup with long pole is familiar to all who have visited a menag- erie, and appears to be the only noise the creature makes when in state of captivity; but in his native forest, in the long nights of the cold season when the woods on the hills seem to sleep in the moonlight, the tiger, striding along in his native forest, news like an old tom cat-or rather like a hundred old tom cats in chorus. It is loud and harsh and grating meow. It is seldom heard more than twice or thrice. When the tiger is on the lookout for food,- usually in the evening, he lies silent and motionless in some dense covert close to water, where ami malls resort to drink, and when one of these approaches near enough he bounds out on his prey in perfect silence, or with an abrupt, sonorous grunt, terribly startling, which ap- pears to paralyze the victim and deprive it of all power to fly or resist"