a judicial spirit. I have hitherto been ranged
on the side of the moderate party; still I was bound to respect the
opinion of Sir Joseph Fayrer, who, as not only as a sportsman but
as an anatomist, was entitled to attention; and from my long personal
acquaintance I should implicitly accept any statement made by him.
Dr. Jerdon, whom I knew intimately, was not, I may safely assert,
a great tiger shikari, and he based his opinion on evidence and with
great caution. Mr. J. Shillingford, from whom I have received the
greatest assistance in my recent investigations, and who has
furnished me with much valuable information, is on the other hand
the strenuous assertor of the existence of the eleven-foot tiger,
and with the magnificent skulls before me, which he has sent down
from Purneah, I cannot any longer doubt the size of the Bengal tiger,
and that the animals to which they belonged were eleven feet,
_measured sportsman fashion_--that is round the curves. The larger
of the two skulls measures 15.25 inches taken between two squares,
placed one at each end; a tape taken from the edge of the
premaxillaries over the curve of the head gives 17.37 inches; the
width across the zygomatic arches, 10.50.[10] The palatal
measurement, which is the test I proposed for ascertaining the length
of the skeleton, is 12.25, which would give 5 feet 7.37 inches; about
3-3/4 inches larger than the big skeleton in the Museum. This may
seem very small for the body of an animal which is supposed to measure
eleven feet, but I must remind my readers that the bones of the
biggest tiger look very small when denuded of the muscles; and the
present difficulty I have to contend with is how to strike the average
rate for the allowance to be added to skeleton for muscles, the chief
stumbling block being the system which has hitherto included the tail
in the measurement. It all tigers had been measured as most other
animals (except felines) are--i.e. head and body together, and then
the tail separately--I might have had some more reliable data to go
upon; but I hope in time to get some from such sportsmen as are
interested in the subject. I have shown that the tail is not
trustworthy as a proportional part of the total length; but from such
calculations as I have been able to make from the very meagre
materials on which I have to base them, I should allow one 2.50th
part of the total length of skeleton for curves and muscles.

[Footnote 10: At Mr. Shillingf