After tearing the throat open, they walk round the prostrate carcase
of their prey, growling and spitting like 'tabby' cats. They begin
their operations in earnest, invariably on the buttock. A leopard
generally eats the inner portion of the thigh first. A wolf tears open
the belly, and eats the intestines first. A vulture, hawk, or kite,
begins on the eyes; but a tiger invariably begins on the buttocks,
whether of buffalo, cow, deer, or pig. He then eats the fatty covering
round the intestines, follows that up with the liver and udder, and
works his way round systematically to the fore-quarters, leaving the
head to the last. It is frequently the only part of an animal that
they do not eat.
A 'man-eater' eats the buttocks, shoulders, and breasts first. So many
carcases are found in the jungle of animals that have died from
disease or old age, or succumbed to hurts and accidents, that the
whitened skeletons meet the eye in hundreds. But one can always tell
the kill of a tiger, and distinguish between it and the other bleached
heaps. The large bones of a tiger's kill are always broken. The broad
massive rib bones are crunched in two as easily as a dog would snap
the drumstick of a fowl. Vultures and jackals, the scavengers of the
jungle, are incapable of doing this; and when you see the fractured
large bones, you can always tell that the whiskered monarch has been
on the war-path. George S. writes me:--
'I have known a tiger devour a whole bullock to his own cheek in one
day. Early in the morning a man came to inform me he had seen a tiger
pull down a bullock. I went after the fellow late in the afternoon,
and found him in a bush not more than twenty feet square, the only
jungle he had to hide in for some distance round, and in this he had
polished off the bullock, nothing remaining save the head. The jungle
being so very small, and he having lain the whole day in it, nothing
in the way of vultures or jackals could have assisted him in finishing
off the bullock.'
When hungry they appear to bolt large masses of flesh without
masticating it. The same correspondent writes:--
'We cut out regular "fids" once from a tiger's stomach, also large
pieces of bone. Joe heard a tremendous roaring one night, which
continued till near morning, not far from Nipunneah. He went out at
dawn to look for the tiger, which he found was dead. The brute had
tried to swallow the knee-joint of a bullock, and it had stuck in his
gullet. This made him roar from pain, and eventually choked him.'
As there are two distinct varieties of wild pig in India, so there
seems to be little doubt that there are two distinct kinds of tigers.
As these have frequently crossed we find many hybrids. I cannot do
better than again quote from my obliging and observant friend George.
The two kinds he designates as 'The Royal Bengal,' and 'The Hill
Tiger,' and goes on to say:--
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