hearing all the pros and cons,
the captain generally succeeds in awarding the tiger to the right man.

After a successful day, the news rapidly spreads through the adjacent
country, and we may take the line a little out of our way to make a
sort of triumphal procession through the villages. On reaching the
camp there is sure to be a great crowd waiting to see the slain
tigers, the despoilers of the people's flocks and herds.

It is then you hear of all the depredations the dead robber has
committed, and it is then you begin to form some faint conception of
his enormous destructive powers. Villager after villager unfolds a
tale of some favourite heifer, or buffalo, or cow having been struck
down, and the copious vocabulary of Hindostanee Billingsgate is almost
exhausted, and floods of abuse poured out on the prostrate head.

On cutting open the tiger, parasites are frequently found in the
flesh. These are long, white, thread-like worms, and are supposed by
some to be Guinea worms. Huge masses of undigested bone and hair are
sometimes taken from the intestines, shewing that the tiger does not
waste much time on mastication, but tears and eats the flesh in large
masses. The liver is found to have numbers of separate lobes, and the
natives say that this is an infallible test of the age of a tiger, as
a separate lobe forms on the liver for each year of the tiger's life.
I have certainly found young tigers having but two and three lobes,
and old tigers I have found with six, seven, and even eight, but the
statement is entirely unsupported by careful observation, and requires
authentication before it can be accepted.

A reported kill is a pretty certain sign that there are tigers in the
jungle, but there are other signs with which one soon gets familiar.
When, for example, you hear deer calling repeatedly, and see them
constantly on the move, it is a sign that tiger are in the
neighbourhood. When cattle are reluctant to enter the jungle,
restless, and unwilling to graze, you may be sure tiger are somewhere
about, not far away. A kill is often known by the numbers of vultures
that hover about in long, sailing, steady circles. What multitudes of
vultures there are. Overhead, far up in the liquid ether, you see them
circling round and round like dim specks in the distance; farther and
farther away, till they seem like bees, then lessen and fade into the
infinitude of space. No part of the sky is ever free from their
presence