Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1876 — Man-Eating Tigers. [ARTICLE]

Man-Eating Tigers.

One of the most curious, and, at the same time, well-attested peculiarities of the liger is that he does not naturally possess, but easily acquires a love of human flesh. At first tigers appear to bow to that instinctive dread of man which is natural to all animals. The natives are aware of this habit, and carry on their usual avocations as grass-cutters, fruitgatherers, herdsmen, etc., close to a thicket where a tiger is known to be lying. It is not merely fatalism, as might be supposed, that renders them thus apathetic, but the knowledge that so long as tigers can procure other food they will not iniure mad. Even when one of their cattle is struck down, they run up and often frighten the tiger from the body of his victim by shouting and beating sticks on the ground. These “ aheers.” or herdsmen, too, armed with what Aristotle calls the courage derived fromexperience, will conduct the sportsman up to the “ kill” with fearless confidence. Like the cobra, they hold the tiger in superstitious reverence. In many parts, says Dr. Fayrer, the natives will avoid mentioning his name, save by a variety of periphrases or euphemisms, and will not kill him even when they have a fair opportunity to do so, for fear that his spirit will haunt them or do them mis Chief after death. But when the tiger has once tasted human flesh, the spell _pf man’s supremacy is broken, and ever after that, it is said, he prefers it to any other.— Fraier'e Haganine. /. (