[Illustration: _Photo by L. Medland, F.Z.S., North Finchley._
Note the great development of the legs and paws.]
[Illustration: _Photo by Valentine & Sons, Ltd._] [_Dundee._
This is an old Bengal Tiger, with the smooth, short coat grown in that hot climate.]
TIGERS are the "type animal" of Asia. They are found nowhere else. Lions were inhabitants, even in historic times, of Europe, and are still common on the Euphrates and in parts of Persia, just as they were when the Assyrian kings shot them with arrows from their hunting-chariots. They survived in Greece far later than the days when story says that Hercules slew the Nemean lion in the Peloponnesus, for the baggage-animals of Xerxes' army of invasion were attacked by lions near Mount Athos. But the tiger never comes, and never did come in historic times, nearer to Europe than the Caucasian side of the Caspian Sea. On the other hand, they range very far north. All our tiger-lore is Indian. There is scarcely a story of tigers to be found in English books of sport which deals with the animal north of the line of the Himalaya. These Chinese northern tigers and the Siberian tigers are far larger than those of India. They have long woolly coats, in order to resist the cold. Their skins are brought to London in hundreds every year to the great fur-sales. But the animals themselves we never see. The present writer was informed by a friend that in the Amur Valley he shot three of these tigers in a day, putting them up in thick bush-scrub by the aid of dogs.
[Illustration: _Photo by Fratelli Alinari_] [_Florence._
Tigers, when about to sleep, sit in this position; when more drowsy, they lie down or roll over on their backs.]
The ROYAL BENGAL TIGER, so called, and very properly called in the old books of natural history, is a different and far more savage beast. It is almost _invariably_ a ferocious savage, fierce by nature, never wishing to be otherwise than a destroyer--of beasts mainly, but often of men. Compared with the lion, it is far longer, but rather lighter, for the lion is more massive and compact. "A well-grown tigress," says Sir Samuel Baker, "may weigh on an average 240 lbs. live weight. A very fine tiger may weigh 440 lbs., but if fat the same tiger would weigh 500 lbs. There may be tigers which weigh 50 lbs. more than this; but I speak according to my experience. I have found that a tiger of 9 feet 8 inches is about 2 inches above the average. The same skin may be _stretched_ to measure 10 feet. A tiger in the Zoological Gardens is a long, lithe creature with little flesh. Such a specimen affords a poor example of this grand animal in its native jungles, with muscles in their full, ponderous development from continual exertion in nightly travels over long distances, and in mortal struggles when wrestling with its prey. A well-fed tiger is by no means a slim figure. On the contrary, it is exceedingly bulky, broad in the shoulders, back, and loins, and with an extraordinary girth of limbs, especially in the forearms and wrists."