range, gradually made existence impossible to him, until now there are only a few lion-families left in one particular forest tract in the peninsula of Gujerât where they are strictly preserved by the Government. Not so the tiger. Nothing repressed him, and though, no doubt, the jungles of Bengal were his first and favorite haunt, he spread westward as fast as the lion retreated, for the two never have been known to dwell within hearing or meeting distance of each other. As long as he has plenty of antelopes, deer, and wild hogs to feast upon he is not a very objectionable neighbor; in fact he is, in such districts, to some extent a protector of the native agriculturist, as all those animals are exceedingly destructive to crops. When he is reduced to domestic cattle, his vicinity is of course troublesome and ruinous; but nothing can express the horror of having "a man-eater" in the district, i. e., a tiger, generally an old one, which has once tasted human flesh and blood, and thenceforth, from a hideous peculiarity of his nature, will not satiate his hunger with any other prey. Tigers at all times, unlike the lion and most beasts of prey, kill more victims than they need for food, and this instinct of sheer killing seems to grow fiercer and fiercer in a man-eater. Without referring to mere sportsmen's reports, which may be suspected of romance and partiality, there are the dry statistic records with such figures as these: 108 persons killed in one place by a single tiger in three years; an average of about 80 a year destroyed by another in the course of several years; thirteen villages abandoned and 250 acres of rich paying land thrown out of cultivation from terror of a third; and a fourth, as lately as 1869, killing 127 people and stopping a public road for many weeks, until an English sportsman killed him. The aggregate of these isolated cases sums up tremendously. Thus, for the single year of 1877, we have a total of 819 persons and 16,137 head of cattle killed by tigers, and for 1882-895 persons and 16,517 cattle-which reports seem to establish an appalling average. It is some satisfaction to place to the credit side of the balance, for 1877, 1579 tigers killed by native hunters, and 1726 for 1882, which, however, cost the Government respectively £3777 and £4800 in rewards. Yet, incredible as it may appear, the loss of life from tigers and other wild beasts is as nothing compared to that caused by snakes. The serpent tribe is perhaps more numerous in India than in any other country, and the most poisonous varieties seem to have congregated there. The openness of the dwellings imperatively demanded by the climate, and the vast numbers of people sleeping in the open air, in groves, forests, gardens, etc. give them chances of which they make but too good use, swarming in the gardens and seeking shelter in the houses during the rainy season. As a consequence, death from snakebite almost equals an epidemic. In that same year of 1877, 16,777 human victims perished by this means, although £811 reward were paid for the destruction of 127,295 snakes, while in 1882, 19,519 persons were reported to have been killed by snakes as compared with 2606 by tigers, leopards, wolves, and all other wild beasts together. That year £1487 were paid in rewards for the destruction of 322,421 venomous reptiles. 19. The insect world is not less profusely represented than the other divisions of animated creation, and though it successfully does its best to make life disagreeable to those who have not sufficient wealth to protect themselves by costly and ingenious devices, it seems ridiculous to mention the tiny nuisance in one breath with the huge standing disaster the country possesses in its tigers and snakes. Besides, there are two insects which in almost any land would be considered a sufficient source of income, and which here step in as an incidental and secondary resource. They are the insect that produces the valuable and inimitable lac-dye, and especially the silk-worm. This latter, like the tea plant, we are apt to hold as originally the exclusive property of China, and imported thence into every country where it is raised. Yet it appears that it is as much an indigenous native of India as of China, like several other products, and, among them, that most vital one-rice. The mulberry tree, of course, is cultivated in connection with the silk industry, but by no means universally, as there are many varieties of the worm which content themselves with other plants. That which feeds on the leaves of the ashvattha (Ficus Religiosa) is called dêva (divine), on account of the sacredness of the tree, and very highly prized-nor altogether on superstitious grounds, for the thread it spins is said to be quite equal, if not superior, to that of the mulberry worm, both in glossy beauty and flexible strength; perhaps |