Author's Note Summary and Analysis

In the author's note, the author explains why animals develop man-eating habits. Man-eating tigers, for instance, have been compelled to eat men due to wounds and old age. Only when tigers have been incapacitated will they eat humans, or when they have missing teeth and so on. It is important to not classify tigers as man-eating too quickly, however.

Not all man-eaters are old and mangy; the mange comes from too much salt in human flesh. The cubs of man-eaters also do not automatically become man-eaters. Cubs will eat what their mothers give them, but mothers almost never give them human flesh. There is also some dispute over whether humans killed and partly eaten are eaten by tigers or leopards. Tigers are usually responsible for kills in the day, leopards kills at night.

However, often why a tiger kills...