MAN-EATERS

Shannon News, 28 May 1926, Page 4

MAN-EATERS

TIGERS AND LEOPARDS The cables this wsoK told a gruesome story of a man being by a leopard. The death roll of the natives of India from the deadly cobra and Karait, land the man-eating tigers and leopards, reaches almost an incredible ) total yearly. I One man-eating tiger ' alone has I been known to claim over, 100 victims. | The news from the Garhwal district of the United Province that a J man-eating leopard which has attacked and eaten 114 victims is still (at large, serves to recall the fact that ) India almost alone among the countries of the world, is still the scene of conflict between man and the creatures of the wild. • Incredible as it may seem, the yearly toal of human deaths due to snakebite in India is some 30,000 and the same causes put as high as between 60,000 and 70,000 These figures are from official reports, as also in the stimate of tho victims of the Garwhal* man-eater while the death-rate from ma'n-eaters as a whole reaches hundreds if , the whole of the vast "sub-continent" is taken into account. \ Deadly Cobra.

The snake-bite casualties are mostly due to the karait and; the cobra, which are as common in some quarters of India as birds. The Hindus worship Nag, the Snake-God, because when the infant Krishna was being carried over the Ganges shortly after his birth, a cobra spread his ' hood over the child, and thus preventing the tremendous storm forevaiing r at ,the time from drencing him.. Thus they arc averse to killing cobras, the hooded snakes of the country and at the same time one of the most vericmous known. On the other hand, they feed and almost cherish them. And as the cobras live in dark holes beneath houses they frequently come into contact with villagers, to the latter's misfortune.

Indian mud-huts are lighted at I night only by a single tiny flame in } a native lamp, and most of the hut I remains darkness, in which the I snakes glide from their . lairs. A careless movement immediately inside th e hut in the immediate neighbourhood of the rep-tile, which is invisible in the gloom, is apt to result in a bite fatal within an-hour or so, unless drastic remedies are adopted, i Indians are also particularly, liable j jto bites when moving along; paths jat night, as they always go barefoot, tor at least bare-legged, thus allowing ] the startled snake every chance of a j fatal attack. Their safeguard is to carry a light in order to avoid treacling in the neighbourhood of any snake in the path, and perhaps the 1 comrhoucst sight after nightfall is a party of workers returning homeward in single file, following the lead ot one swinging a hurricane lantern. Even when walking at night, in one's garden in so populous a place 1 as Calcutta, it is wise to carry a lantern. One never knows what danger might be lurking in the shadows. The cobra will not attack until he is scared, and he always makes off if he has an opportunity, so that the value of a light which gives him ample warning, is thus clear. Man-eating Tigers

A man-eating leopard is a rarity, but a man-eating tiger is comparatively common in certain districts. This is not to suggest that India is a country in which tigers and snakes arc the bane of life, as some who have not been within several thousand miles of it believe/but there .arc still enough wild animals to make India one of the finest big-game countries in the world. The residents of Calcutta, for instance, can, if they make proper arrangements, "shoot a tiger within SO miles of 'that city, for the Sunderbans, forming the mouths of the Ganges and Brahmaputra are called, is crammed with gamo of all types. One may make a journey through these waters in a river steamer, and ;se e deer on the banks, crocodiles sailing themselves on mud flats, and even the lord of the jungle, the Royal Bengal tig-cr himself. I was on such a river steamer once, in the hot season, when the 'streams had dried almost to a trickle, and a tiger came out of a patch of jungle ahead of four bows. And the only swam across to the next island just ahead o four bows. And the only "weapon" abroad was a camera. The jungles of Nepal, where both Ging eGorge and the Prince of Wales have made notable bags of tiger, are famous for their sport. But .the enormous tableland of Central India, Avith its areas of tumbled rock and scrub- ! jungle, its patches of sandy wastes, and its ridges of., hills, also makes an appeal to the sportsman.

Rail Bulldog Held Up. It is in this region that man-eat-ins- tigers have been as notorious in India as the "man-eaters of Tsavo" were in Africa. It is reported that during the building of the Oengal-Nagpur railway through the jungles of the Central Provinces, one stretch of country was particularly notable for the depredations of man-eaters. So daring did they become that they would even snatch coolie off constructed trains as they were slowly hauled along the half-completed line. Even to this day the train staffs hesitate to leave their vehicles at night in that stretch of jungle, for tragedy has followed such experiments.

It is that quarter of India that evidences of tigers are seen and heard on all hands. Not far off is the country of Kipling's "Jungle Book," where tigers are still as .familiar to the inhabitants as in the past, as may bo seen in the thorn hedges round the" little farms and the huge fires blazing at night, even in the hottest weather, in front of the hut of the rail--"way gatomen entrusted with seeing

that the level-crossing gates are closed while a train passes. It is \here that one is warned not to be. out in the jungle after dusk unless one h£ts a.' rifle Here one is shown a level-crossing and a bridge over a* river, either of which a maneater has been known to use nightly for months, and yet has escaped all attempts to bring him to justice, although he has a reward of several hundreds of rupees upon his head, the result of a bajg of scores of victims. '■* Toll of the Natives Some man-eaters are known to have killed as many as two hundred people, mostly natives carried off at dusk from some path through the jungle, or from a road frequented by pilgrims, or from among isolated grasscutters or gatheres of fuel, who walk slowly through the forest- picking up fallen branches and twigs. It is supposed that the tiger bocomes a man-eater becauso age has reduced is's speed and activity and also loosened its teeth, so that it finds difficulty in either running down or'killing its usual prey of deer buffalo, pig, or even cattle. When, the tiger's method of killing animals is remembered, the need for activity is apparent.

The beast's almost invariable practice is to leap upon the back of the doomed animal, and when the powerful claws of th e forefoot have secured a purchase upon the shoulders —a matter of a head of the t'ger is thrust downward, and the neck or throat of the. prey siezed. The tiger then wrenches his head up, arid sometimes at the samo time leaps to one side, pulling the victim over upon ,it side and almost invariably breaking its neck. Thus ago, or perhaps an injury, will cripple a tiger, and it will turn its attention to the lowest thing it meets in'the jungles, which is inan. The case with which a man can be caught, makes the practice a habit, and a | confirmed man-cater results. The fact that man-eaters are usually mangy, as an old tiger would be, is regarded as proof of the fact that old tigers take to the habit; but mancaters have also been killed which have been injured either by a shot or by some accident, such as £t porcupine quill running, up through a P a "*v and completely stiffening that limb. Man-eating; Hereditary

But it is also believed that maneating is hereditary, and that, for instance, a man-eating tigress will teach her cubs to kill men, thus leading them to acquire a taste for human flesh at an early age. And once these beasts have eaten man they will rarely touch any other prey. Many tigers are shot by a sportsman sitting up in a machan over a "kill'' to which the tiger is expected to return, as if usually does, (he following night. But this method fails in , the case of a man-eater, which never returns to its half-eaten prey, although many men have tried th experiment of waiting in|,a nighbourin-' 1 tree for a chance of a shot.

Thus such boasts are much harder to shoot than an ordinary tiger, which accounts .for their tally of victims being so heavy. One of. the most extraordinary stories of pluck in shooting a maneater occurred near Nairn Tal f where a tiger claimed* well over 100 victims. At last a European went out to inspect its last victim, with the idea of picking up the tiger's tracks .On the way he, without knowing it, passed the tiger's lair. Then he suddenly realised thai, while he had set out to stalk the tiger, the tiger was stalking him. He summoned all his resourches of nerve and went on, never looking round, up a steep lane in the jungle, Suddenly, at a sharp turn in the lane i he stepped behind a tree where he knelt with his rifle ready. When the man-eater showed round the bend he tired and killed it. Big-game shots will tell you that, dangerous and fierce as is the tiger, the leopard; although smaller, is the quickest, boldest and most stealthy of the felines. The leopard, or panther however, rarely attacks such big animals as the tiger, but usually goats, kids, and, in the hills, dog* from the European stations. A leopard has been known to descend into a settlement,'Whip off a pet , dog from a busy road, and leap off down the hillsides at incredible speed But the larger types will kill calves and even ponies, and their remarkable coolness is commented upon by all who have shot them. ' Major-General Woodyatt, a great sportsman, relates how, while waiting in a tree for a leopard which had ; killed a pony, he saw the beast again approaching'the kill. tl was 80 feet away and remained, all of it but its head, hidden behind a tree, watching the kill for G 5 minutes. ; Then it disappeared and in anoth- . or half-hour re-appeured behind him. At least he heard it there. At last it emerged beneath the tree and ap- ' proa died the dead pony, and the Mayor-General who had boon forced ; to remain motionless all this time, was able to drop it. This is an in- : stance of the leopard's suspicion. i

Difficult to Trap. ! ! Tiie man-eater of Garwhal seems re be equally equipped with the sense ' of self-prservation. Sixteen paid ' shikaris have so far failed to shoot or ' trap it. Poison has been freely used without effect, and prominent Euro- • pean sportsman have been after it ' equally fruitlessly. ~- i One of these describes how he ar-. i ranged a gun-trap which the passage ! of the leopard over the trigger strings would release. His plan was to drive .' the leopard over the trap, acting upon the premise , that an animal always ( bolts in the direction in which its head is pointing when startled by a ' shot. He took- post near the trap, and .put a white stone.,as an aiming i mark on a path thy'leopard used to 1 approach the kill, in this case a goat, j The leopard evaded the trap, and j came to his kill by a different way '

after half an hour had elapsed from the time when he was first seen approaching the scrub beneath the tree in winch the shikari was sitting, but so wonderful is the leopard's power of concealment that, although the sportsman heard the beast's movements. hc ; failed to see.it. ■ he fired at the path he knew was there and the direction of which was marked by the white stone dimly in th e darkness. And all the ikuviay,. he did 'was to take a few hairs off the neek. : Then the Panther.

Man eating panthers are far worse than man-eating tigers. They show far greater cunning and certainly more diabolical boldness. One dreaded man-eater (leopard), entered a house and carried off a woman after lying in grass less than a foot high, with people continually passing by. Another lived for years, despite numerous attempts to kill it, and it is recorded that one army officer who determined to rid the neighbourhood of this pest, repeatedly sat up > over the half-eaten human body had on many occasions the feeling that the leopard was stalking him, and heard in- the morning that he had killed at a later hour of the night ton miles off. Most, of the shooting of man-eaters in India is done by Europeans, and many Indian civilians are famous for (heir skill with the rifle as are many soldiers.. The Indian shikaris, > or hunters, are remarkable for their knowledge of the animals whom they follow up in order to arrange shoots for Europeans, and have also on many occasions given proof of their bravery in moments in crisis. They will, if armed with reliable weapons, trickle man-eaters themselves.