When the tiger or the tigress is teaching the cubs to catch horned cattle in these different ways, the cubs of course stay a little behind and watch how their father or mother does it.
So in every case, as you will understand, the tiger cubs have to learn from their parents how to get their living in the jungle.
So far I have described to you how the tiger cubs learn the lessons of the jungle from their father and mother.
But sometimes they have to learn some of their lessons from their mother alone. Food may be scarce in that part of the jungle. A tiger family eats so much that even if they catch a large wild pig or a deer every day, it will hardly provide more than a single meal for a tiger, a tigress, and two or three growing cubs.
And as they do not usually catch prey every day, the family eats only about two or three times a week. When the cubs are from six to ten months old and need more and more food, one prey at a time is not enough to provide for the whole family--if they all live together. So it is better for the family that the father should go away and catch his own food, while the mother catches food for herself and the cubs.
But before going to earn his living elsewhere, the tiger takes his family to the _easiest_ hunting ground there is near their jungle, where there is at least some kind of prey to catch. Then the tiger himself goes to a more difficult hunting ground. So even in that a tiger is kind to his family, and he does the best he can for them.
At first he returns to the family every few days; I suppose he does that to see how they are getting along in his absence. By that time the cubs have learned most of their lessons, and the mother tigress continues the lessons during the tiger's absence.
But after the cubs are ten months old, they have learned all their lessons; they only need to _practice_ what they have learned. As they can do that with their mother, they do not need their father any more. So the tiger then goes on his travels to distant parts.
As the cubs practice with their mother the different ways of catching and killing the prey, she must provide them with many chances of doing so. It is then that she helps the cubs to kill more animals than they can eat. That is why people give the tiger a bad name and call him a "bloodthirsty" animal. It is not he at all, but the tigress mother. And she helps to kill a large number of animals only at this time--when she must provide her cubs with the chance of practicing their lessons.