the roof. Down this, accordingly, the ram was lowered. The tiger was dozing in the corner, but when it saw the mutton descend, it rose and, after a long sleepy yawn, began to stretch itself. Meanwhile, the ram, who had no notion that he had been put there to be eaten, was watching the monster’s lazy preparations for his meal with the eye of an old gladiator, and, seeing the tiger stretch himself, supposed the fight was commencing. Accordingly he stepped nimbly back to the farthest corner of the stage, just as the tiger, of course, all along expected he would do, — and then, which the tiger had not in the least expected, put down his head and went straight at the striped beast. The old tiger had not a chance from the first, and as there was no way of getting the ram out again, the agonized owners had to look on while the sheep killed the tiger!
Nor are such instances at all uncommon. Old cows have gored them, village dogs have worried them, horses have kicked their ribs to fragments, and even man himself, the proper lawful food of the man-eating tiger, has turned upon his consumer, and beaten him off with a stick. When a tiger can thus be set at naught by his supper, he hardly deserves all the reverent admiration with which tradition and story-books have invested him, and which an untravelled public has superstitiously entertained towards him.
“Generally speaking,” says Dr. Jerdon, a great authority on Indian zoölogy, “the Bengal tiger is a harmless, timid animal. When once it takes to killing man it almost always perseveres in its endeavors to procure the same food; and, in general, it has been found that very old tigers, whose teeth are blunted or gone, and whose strength has failed, are those that relish human food, finding an easy prey.”
