Tiger skin

“ A Tiger’s skin with its whiskers preserved is a rarity; you cannot keep them. The domestic, who would preserve any other valuable as a most sacred trust, will fail under this temptation! The whiskers, besides other wonderful powers, are said to possess that of being a slow poison when administered with the food. Such is the belief, which you may try in vain to disturb! The clavicles, too—little curved bones like tiny ribs—are also much valued; but they are generally lost or overlooked when the Tiger is cut up, lying buried in the powerful muscles near the shoulders. ”

“ For the tigers in the cold countries have thick fur on their skin, and a layer of fat under their skin—just to keep them warm. So they are too fat to be as muscular and active as the slim and lithe tigers that live in the hot countries in the south of Asia.
Now please remember one thing more about the dwelling place of the tiger: there is no tiger in Africa. Even clever people do not always know that. When ex-President Roosevelt went on a hunting trip to Africa a few years ago, he shot many wild and ferocious animals there, and some newspapers said that he had shot several tigers. ”

“ From the Chinese point of view the skin is not the most valuable part of a tiger. Almost always before a hunt is made, or a trap is built, the villagers hum incense before the temple god, and an agreement is made to the effect that if the enterprise be successful the skin of the beast taken becomes the property of the gods. ”

“ Skin him and he would not be larger than an old male tiger also divested of his hide.
Like the lion, the tiger varies but little in form or colour. Nature does not sport with these powerful beasts. It is only upon the meaner animals she plays off her eccentricities. The tiger may be seen with the ground-colour of a lighter or deeper yellow, and the stripes or bars more or less black; but the same general appearance is preserved, and the species can always be recognised at a glance. ”

“ He is a native of various parts, both of Asia and Africa, but is principally found in India and the Indian Islands. The skin of the tiger is almost the only advantage, trifling as that is, which mankind appears to derive from this destructive beast. Tigers' skins are occasionally imported into Europe, but not in great numbers, as articles of trade. They are rather brought as objects of curiosity than of use ”

“ There may possibly be some connection between this tabu and the belief that when a medicine-man dies he returns as a tiger, and even during his lifetime he can make excursions in tiger-form, and be so absolutely tiger that he can slay and eat the beasts of the wild. Every medicine-man possesses a jaguar skin that he is said to use when he turns tiger. By possession of a skin he has the power of resuscitating the tiger, he himself being the spirit of the tiger. ”

“ The tiger is by no means fond of extreme heat; it is found in northern China, Manchuria, and the Corea, where the winters are severe. In those climates during winter the skin is very beautiful, consisting of thick fur instead of hair, and the tail is comparatively bushy. ”

“ I may add that both the claws and whiskers of tigers are greatly sought after as charms, and are almost invariably stolen from a tiger when one is killed by a European. I have also seen at Klang a charm written on tiger’s skin. ”

“ Sir Joseph Fayrer has also been called in question for his belief in twelve feet tigers, but what he says is reasonable enough. "The tiger should be measured from the nose along the spine to the tip of the tail, as he lies dead on the spot where he fell, before the skin is removed. ”

“ It may be easily imagined that the dense green foliage of Indian jungles renders all objects difficult to perceive distinctly, but the striped skin of a tiger harmonizes in a peculiar manner with dry sticks, yellowish tufts of grass, and the remains of burnt stumps, which are so frequently the family of colours that form the surroundings of the animal. ”

“ The whiskers are supposed by some to endow their possessor with unlimited power over the opposite sex." Tiger bones are often sold in China to form an ingredient in certain invigorating jellies, made of hartshorn, and the plastron of the terrapin or tortoise. Burmese and Malays eat the flesh of the tiger, because they believe that by eating it they acquire the courage and sagacity of the animal. Tigers' claws are used as charms, and the most solemn oath of one of the aboriginal tribes of India, the "Santals," is sworn when touching a tiger's skin ”

“ The great saber-toothed tiger developed canine tusks six inches in length, and the small edentates, the natural prey of the tiger, developed first small isolated bones in the skin, but ever as the tusks grew the bones in the skin became larger and better arranged, until the almost perfect protection of the Armadillo appeared. ”

“ these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. ”

“ The eye is peculiarly brilliant, and when glaring with fury it is truly demoniac. With his bristles rigid, the snarling lips drawn back, disclosing the formidable fangs, the body crouching for his spring, and the lithe tail puffed up and swollen, and lashing restlessly from side to side, each muscle tense and strung, and an undulating movement perceptible like the motions of a huge snake, a crouching tiger at bay is a sight that strikes a certain chill to the heart of the onlooker. ”

“ As supper-time approaches, the tigers begin to roar and growl, and march restlessly up and down the cage. When the keeper approaches with the great pieces of raw beef, their roaring makes everything tremble. With ferocity glaring in their eyes, the tigers spring for the food, and begin to devour it eagerly. They often lie down to eat, holding the meat in their fore-paws like a cat, rolling it over and over while they tear it in pieces, growling savagely all the while.
The royal tiger is found only in Asia ”

“ In some the brows and cheeks are white, and in all the chin, throat, breast, and belly are pure white. All parts, however, whether white or rufous, are equally pervaded by the black stripes. The males have prolonged hairs extending from the ears round the cheeks, forming a ruff, or whiskers as they are sometimes called, although the true whiskers are the labial bristles. The pupil of the tiger's eye is round, and not vertical, as stated by Jerdon. ”

“ There is no foundation for the belief in tigers sucking the blood of their victims; the jugular vein is seldom if ever injured; it is by the fracturing of the vertibræ, not by blood-letting, that the tiger's prey is deprived of life. In eating, the tiger invariably commences at the hindquarters and the exact spot where the first mouthful will be taken can be told with certainty. ”

“ Such a specimen affords a poor example of the grand animal in its native jungles, whose muscles are almost ponderous in their development from the continual exertion in nightly rambles over long distances, and in mortal struggles when wrestling with its prey. A well-fed tiger is by no means a slim figure, but on the contrary it is exceedingly bulky, broad in the shoulders, back, and loins, with an extraordinary girth of limbs, especially in the fore-arm and wrist. ”

“ Tigers will occasionally take to water. In the Sunderbunds especially they are often seen swimming across the various rivers, which form innumerable islands, inhabited only by wild beasts. Invariably, the fore-paw is the Tiger’s instrument of destruction. Most people imagine that if a Tiger were deprived of his claws and teeth he would be rendered harmless; but this is an error; the weight of the limb is the real cause of the mischief, for the claws are rarely extended. ”

“ He crouches, and mostly springs in the same manner as the lion and other feline animals; he is more ferocious, and will even fight with the lion. He seems to delight in blood itself, for he will kill several victims, suck their [Pg 214] blood, and leave their carcasses to be devoured at another opportunity.
The colour of the tiger is a bright orange tawny, white underneath, and broad black stripes on the back, sides and tail. His head is rounder than that of the lion, and he takes the most enormous leaps; he is to be tamed to a certain extent, but never trusted. He prowls both night and day ”

“ This is the acme of the flesh, the one superb tiger who has devoured all living flesh, and now paces backwards and forwards in the cage of its own infinite, glaring with blind, fierce, absorbed eyes at that which is nothingness to it.
The eyes of the tiger cannot see, except with the light from within itself, by the light of its own desire. Its own white, cold light is so fierce that the other warm light of day is outshone, it is not, it does not exist. So the white eyes of the tiger gleam to a point of concentrated vision, upon that which does not exist. ”

“ And think again, what a puny thing is a tiger’s tooth or claw compared to a big knife!
True it is that when a tiger finds a man unready and alone, he can kill him as easily as a man can kill a chicken. But in the course of ages he has acquired an instinctive horror of men, weak as they are, such as men, in turn, have of snakes. The unknown seems infinite, to tigers as to men. A dog has its teeth, a deer or bull its horns; but when a crowd of men are coming at him with a noise like a cyclone, a tiger cannot tell what to expect. ”

“ This obscure coloring may be either for the purpose of securing prey, or for concealment. The banded colors of the tiger perfectly blend with the lights and shadows in the jungle-grass. Those forest animals which live on the ground, as game-birds, deer, rabbit, or squirrel, are of brown or neutral hues, which assimilate to the color of dead leaves and tree-trunks; and they are quite impossible to discover as long as they remain motionless. Animals of the desert are dull or rust colored, or of some light tint. Insects, frogs, and lizards, which live among the leaves, are green ”

“ Any man can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could serve so rare a use as the author of this illustration did. Confucius says,—"The skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are tanned, are as the skins of the dog and the sheep tanned." But it is not the part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious; and tanning their skins for shoes is not the best use to which they can be put. ”

“ Take off that tail, sir!"
Smythe undid the tail, and took it off. There was a bright red mark all round his white body, and I should think the tail must have given him a pretty good doing. A tiger's hair is undoubtedly scratchy when applied to a tender part of the human frame, like the stomach; and perhaps savages know this, and that is really the reason why they wear them. Because nobody who kept a tiger's tail under his clothes for any length of time could help getting fairly snappy, if not actually fierce. ”

“ The paws, moreover, are fitted with large soft pads which enable this bulky animal to move without a rustle over ground where the lizard can hardly stir without being heard; while its coloring, though it seems conspicuous enough when seen in a cage behind bars and against a background of whitewash, assimilates with astonishing exactness to its surroundings when the tiger lies in ambush under the overhanging roots, or crouches amongst the cane-grass.
For the tiger makes no pretence to invincible courage. On the contrary, he prefers, as a rule, to enjoy life rather than die heroically. ”

“ Of course, it is very unusual to meet this ferocious creature by daylight, even in regions where its ravages are the most frequent. Every traveller will pass by its lair in the bamboo groves, but it is quite exceptional to see the beast itself, except at nightfall, when it comes forth to seek its prey. Once a tiger has tasted human flesh it prefers it to all other food. Accordingly, the natives live in a state of chronic fear of the man-eater and will willingly abandon their villages rather than make the least effort to rid themselves of the pest. ”

“ In the hot season the animal is easily discovered, as it invariably haunts the banks of rivers, when all the brooks are dry and the tanks have disappeared through evaporation. The tiger loves to wallow in shallow water, and to roll upon the dry sand after a muddy bath; it will swim large rivers, and in the Brahmaputra, where reedy and grassy islands interrupt the channel in a bed of several miles' width, the tigers travel over considerable distances during the night, swimming from island to island, and returning to the mainland if no prey is to be found during the night's ramble. ”

“ Tigers are found in India, in the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, at Borneo, at Java, and at Sumatra. Civilization has hunted them out of the Celestial Empire, but they are met with in Tartary, even in extremely cold latitudes. The tigers of the North a beneficent Nature has furnished with much longer hair than their congeners of the Tropical zone, and they seem to form a distinct variety of the species. Wherever the tiger exists, war à l’outrance is declared between man and him! ”

“ Such a small mouth cannot hold many teeth, and the front ones, though sharp and pointed, are small, for the tiger does not fight with his teeth like the wolf, but strikes with his heavy paw. But the eye-teeth are immensely large, strong, and dagger-like, to hold the prey and tear the flesh apart, and all the double teeth behind, especially the last bottom tooth and the one to match it above, have very sharp cutting edges, so that, when the two jaws work against each other they divide the flesh like a pair of shears. ”