Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Mammalia).djvu/97

Rh Tigers are monogamous. The period of gestation is about 14 to 15 weeks, and from 2 to 5 young, and occasionally it is said even 6, are produced at one time. I have on more than one occasion known four cubs to be cut out from a tigress's body after death. There is no particular season for breeding. Young cubs are found at all times of the year. The tigress is said to avoid the male when about to bring forth, and to hide her young from him; but tigers are occasionally, though not often, seen accompanying tigresses and cubs. The young remain with the mother until nearly or quite full-grown; and when more than two tigers are found consorting together, the party consists in general of a tigress and her full-grown offspring, the old tiger occasionally associating with his family also. Forsyth observes that a tigress cannot have young more frequently than once in three years, because the cubs take about that time to attain their full growth.

These animals are usually found solitary or in pairs, less frequently in parties of from three to six. They remain at rest during the day, and roam about at night in search of food. Their wanderings are considerable, and frequently extend to many miles in the course of the night, a preference being given to well-beaten tracks or sandy beds of streams. On these, in the early morning, every incident of the night's adventures may be traced by an experienced tracker. The tiger sometimes continues his stroll in the early morning, and his movements, as Forsyth remarks, "may often be traced up to eight or nine o'clock by the voices of monkeys and peafowl, the chatter of crows and small birds, and the bark of sambar and spotted deer." The alarm-cries of all these animals are quite peculiar and different from their ordinary calls; but it must be remembered that the cause of their alarm may be a leopard, a wild cat, a bear, a dog, or even in some cases a man, and not necessarily a tiger.

The tiger usually takes up his abode for the day in deep shade, especially in the hot season, and in general near water under a dense bush or tree, in high green grass, or in thick low cover such as green rushes, tamarisk, or some of the other plants that grow in the beds of streams. Not unfrequently a high bank affords him the cool shade he loves, and in rocky parts of the country caves are frequently resorted to; where ruins exist in jungle they are often a favourite abode. A well-known habit of all wild animals, but especially remarked in the case of the tiger, is the regularity with which paiticular haunts are selected in preference to others that appear equally well suited. Some one patch of high nul grass near the river-bank or on the edge of the swamp, one dense thicket of jhow (Tamarix) ov jáman (Eugenia) amongst a dozen apparently similar in a stream-bed, one especial pile of rocks amongst hundreds along the hill-side, will be the resort year after year of a tiger, and when the occupant is shot, another, after a brief interval, takes his place.

Tigers, especially in the cold and wet seasons, when there is abundance of cover and water, are great wanderers, roaming from