Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/329

* TIFLIS. 281 TIGER. picturesque and striking parts of the Caucasus. The principal river is the Kur. The climate is very severe in the mountainous part. About one-third of the total area is covered with forests. Agriculture is the principal occupation in the valleys and stock-raising in the mountain regions. Besides cereals, of which wheat is the most im- portant, fruits, especially grapes, are extensively raised. Various metals occur and copper is mined to some extent. The chief manufactures are tlour, cotton goods, tobacco, spirits, etc. The natives prodice various woolen articles, such as felt, rough cloth, etc., copper and silver articles, silver thread, filigree work, etc. Population, in 1897, 1,040,943. of whom the Georgians and the Armenians constituted 45 and 24 per cent., respec- tively, and the Russians less than 5 per cent. TIFLIS. The former capital of Georgia, the administrative centre of the Caucasus, and the capital of the Government of Tiflis, situated on both banks of the Kur, about 340 miles by rail northwest of the seaport of Baku (Map: Russia, re). The town presents a very mixed appear- ance. The Russian quarter is well built, with handsome churches and public buildings and European shops, while the native quarter is built in Oriental fashion. The most noteworthy eccle- siastical structures are the ancient Cathedral of Zion, containing interesting icons and manu- scripts ; the Monastery of Saint David ; and the old church in the fortress, supposed to date from the fifth century. There are a natural his- tory museum with a library, a sericultural sta- tion with a museum, and extensive botanical gardens. The principal manufactures are felt, cotton goods, leather products, oil, etc. The trade, mostly in Armenian hands, is very exten- sive, Tiflis, in virtue of its railway connection with the two main seaports of the Caucasus, as well as with European Russia, being the dis- tributing centre for Transcaucasia. Population, in 1897, 160,645, principally Armenians, Georgians, and Russians, The environs abound in sulphur- ous springs, TIGER (Lat. tigris. from Gk, riypis, tiger; probably connected with Av. t'lyra. arrow, tiyra, sharp, Skt. tij, to be sharp, Gk. ffrffeti', sfi>ew, to mark, puncture, and ultimately with Eng. stick). The largest and most powerful of cats, Felts tigris, and the most specialized and efficient of the Carnivora, comparable only with the lion, and very similar in size and structure, but very different in appearance and habits. It is more slen- der and cat-like than the lion, and has a rounder head and no trace of a mane, but the hair of the cheeks is rather long and spreading. Its skull may be distinguished from that of the lion by the fact that the nasal bones reach backward beyond the frontal processes of the maxilla. The males are rather larger than the females, and make a more square, less oval footprint or 'pug.' The pupil of the eye is roiuul, however nuich con- tracted. The average size of an adult male is O'i feet from nose to tip of tail. Authentic measurements exceeding 11 feet are very rare, and stories of 15 to 18 feet entirely erroneous. Its height at the shoulder is proportionately less than that of the lion, a large male measuring from 3% to 3% feet. A ten-foot tiger will weigh about 500 poimds. The hair is thick, fine, and shining; in the colder countries thicker and longer than in tropical regions. The color is a bright tawny yellow, beautifully marked with dark transverse bands, passing into pure white on the under parts; the dark bands are continued as rings on the tail, which is long and tapering and has no terminal tuft. These colors and stripes, sometimes broken, although so conspicu- ous in a caged tiger, or one standing in tlic open, in daylight, so blend with the dusk.v gloom and slender shadows of the bamboo jungle or long grass in which the animal lurks as to make it practically invisible. The tiger inhabits Asia, where it has an ex- tensive but rather localized distribution. West- wardly its range extends to the Lower Eui)hrates and the southern shores of the Caspian ; but it does not occur in Persia south of the Elburz Mountains, nor in Beluchistan or Afghanistan. Northward, it is to be found throughout South- ern Siberia and Mongolia, eastward in the Anuir Valley to the Sea of Okhotsk, in Saghalien and Japan. The elevated Tibetan plateau has no tigers. Southward the species ranges through- out China, Siam, Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and Bali, and all of India, but is unknown in Ceylon. The last-mentioned cir- cumstance is a strong part of the evidence which has led naturalists to conclude that the tiger ia a comparatively recent immigrant into the south, and that it is not naturally a tropical species. In general the tiger is .;in inhabitant of the woods and thickets rather than of open lands, and although able to leap into or climb trees (except smooth, perfectly upright ones), it does so only for some special purpose. Usually it hides in some dense cover by day, and goes abroad at night in search of prey. It is most numerous in the swampy shore jimgles aroimd the Bay of Bengal and on the Malayan coasts and marshy estuaries, where it swims miles from island to island, or across rivers and inlets. Its prey consists of almost anything in the way of flesh, from a bison or crocodile to any small creature which it may think it worth its while to strike down. Carrion may be eaten under stress of famine, but as a rule the ani- mal devours only what it has itself killed, and ordinarily does not even return a second time to a carcass from which it has taken one full meal. It searches for and stalks its prey, or lies in ambush and leaps upon it like other cats; and its method of killing large animals, so far as it may be said to practice one. is to seize the shoulders with one paw, grasp the forehead with the other, and break the neck by a twisting pull. A band of bison or wild oxen, guarded by bulls (see Bison), will beat it off, and often kill it; even a single bull in favorable circumstances is a match for it. The elephant and rhinoceros have little to fear, and a bear will make a stout resistance, but such encounters rarely occur; nor do figlits between male tigers seem to be com- mon, as this cat is not. like the lion, polygamous. In India and eastward the tiger subsists large- ly upon domestic cattle and hogs, and upon human beings, 'Man-eaters.' when thoy do not wholly depend upon human victims, apparently pi-cfer them; many, but not all, of these victims are old and comparatively feeble. The destruc- tion of human life in India and eastward is very great, and there seems little diminution in spite of improved aims, an increasing number of