way of presenting the animals they catch to friends in India, England and elsewhere.  While we were in Jeypore I read in a newspaper that the Negus of Abyssinia had given Robert Skinner two fine lions to take home to President Roosevelt, and I am sure the maharaja of Jeypore would be very glad to add a couple of man-eating tigers if he were aware of Colonel Roosevelt’s love for the animal kingdom.  I intended to make a suggestion in that line to him, but there were so many other things to talk about that it slipped my mind.

The maharaja catches tigers in the orthodox way.  He has cages of iron and the toughest kind of wood set upon wheels so that they can be hauled into the jungle by oxen.  When they reach a suitable place the oxen are unhitched, the hunters conceal the wheels and other parts of the wagon with boughs and palm leaves.  A sheep or a goat or some other animal is sacrificed and placed in the cage for bait and the door is rigged so that it will remain open in an inviting manner until the tiger enters and lifts the carcass from the lever.  The instant he disturbs the bait heavy iron bars drop over the hole through which he entered and he is a prisoner at the mercy of his captors.  Sometimes the scheme fails and the hunters lose their time and trouble and bait, but being men of experience in such affairs they generally know the proper place and the proper season to look for game.  When the watchers notify them that the trap is occupied they come with oxen and haul it to town, where it is backed up against a permanent cage in the menagerie, the iron door is lifted, and the tiger is punched with iron bars until he accepts the quarters that have been provided for him, and becomes a prisoner for life.

It is a terrible thing when a hungry and ugly man-eater comes into a village, for the inhabitants are generally defenseless.  They have no guns, because the government does not allow the natives to carry arms, and their only weapons are the implements of the farm.  If they would clear out and scatter the number of victims would not be so large, but they usually keep together for mutual defense, and, as a consequence, the animal has them at his mercy.  A man-eater that has once tasted human flesh is never satiated, and attacks one victim after another until he has made away with an entire village.

The danger from snakes and other poisonous reptiles is much greater than from tigers and other wild beasts, chiefly because snakes in India are sacred to the gods, and the government finds it an exceedingly delicate matter to handle the situation as the circumstances require.  When a Hindu is bitten by a snake it is considered the act of a god, and the victim is honored rather than pitied.  While his death is deplored, no doubt, he has been removed from an humble earthly sphere to a much more happy and honorable condition in the other world.  Therefore, while it is scarcely true that the Hindus like to be killed by snake poison, they will do very little to protect