division was infested with
wild beasts and, to reduce their numbers, he obtained from one of the
officials a plan of a pit 12 feet long, 12 feet deep, and 2-1/2 feet wide,
closed with brushwood at both sides and one end. Wooden spikes were fixed
at the bottom, and the top of the pit was covered over with light
brushwood. A sheep or goat was then tied inside at the closed end, where
there was standing place left for it. As tigers usually spring on their
prey they are thus sure to fall through the light brushwood into the pit.
"In a short time," writes the general, "48 royal tigers were thus
destroyed, four of which were brought to me on one morning. Mr. Stokes,
the superintendent of the Nuggur division, obtained from me the plan of
these pits, and in an equally short time caught upwards of 70 tigers. Now
comes a circumstance which I can vouch for, but cannot explain. In a short
time the success in both divisions terminated, and never again did a tiger
fall into one of these pits, though numbers of tigers continued to infest
the country." One result of the success obtained is worth recording. The
balance of nature had been destroyed; the tigers to a great extent lived
on wild pigs, and these, after the destruction of the tigers, multiplied
so rapidly that the general records that there was an increased
destruction of extensive sugar plantations. And I may note in passing,
that the balance of nature may equally be destroyed from the other end of
the line, and tigers made much more destructive than they otherwise would
be. This is remarkably so near the western passes of Mysore, for never
were tigers more numerous or destructive than they have recently been in
my neighbourhood, and this is clearly to be traced to the great
destruction[17] of deer, pigs, and bison by the natives in the immediate
vicinity of the great forests, a subject to which I shall afterwards have
occasion to allude.

The sudden spread amongst the tigers of the news about these pits is
really very remarkable. We know that animals and birds are taught by
example and experience to avoid certain dangers--that birds, which are at
first killed in considerable numbers by telegraph wires, gradually learn
to avoid them, and that hares which are at first excluded by rabbit
netting in the course of time take to jumping it, but it is certainly
impossible to explain by anything we know as regards the spread of
experience amongst animals as to how the news could sprea