The hunters know that a sated tiger is far less daring than a hungry one, and they frequently place a calf or some other easy prey within his reach. After his meal he is hunted down, but Leal added that this is not considered fair play amongst thoroughbred _llaneros_; it is a trick unworthy of a real sportsman.
The tigers live exclusively upon other animals. They prefer cattle, and have a special predilection for donkeys and mules; they are gourmets. The choicest morsel to their taste seems to be the fat neck of donkeys and mules; they have, too, a pretty taste in turtles. They can crush the back of the younger turtles not yet fully developed. These awkward amphibians rush, if their ponderous movements can be so described, into the water for fear of the tiger. There he is powerless to harm them.
The alligator rivals the tiger in voracity and fierceness. They are sworn enemies, and attack each other whenever they meet. The odds are on the tiger's side if the struggle be on land, and in favour of the alligator if the pair meet in the water. The tiger seeks to turn the alligator over on his back, or to get at the body towards the stomach, where the softer skin can be penetrated by the tiger's claws, which disembowel his enemy. The alligator defends himself by striking terrific blows with his tail, and seeks to scrunch the tiger between his formidable jaws. Fights between them, Leal said, are frequently seen on the beaches, and are a fascinating though ghastly spectacle.
The tigers frequently cross rivers infested with alligators, and display a really marvellous cunning in avoiding their enemy in his own element. The tiger will stand on the beach at a given point of the river, and there roar with all his might for an hour or so on end. The alligators, in the hope of getting at him, congregate in the water at that particular point. When the members of the assembly thus convened have, so far as the tiger can judge, met at the appointed place, he starts up-stream along the banks as rapidly as possible, and crosses two or three miles higher up. There are two details to be noted: first, the stratagem by which the tiger misleads his enemies; and, second, his choice of a crossing-place, so that the alligator would have to swim against the current to get at him.