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.  When he bounds forward, with a roar that reverberates among the mazy labyrinths of the interminable jungle, he tests the steadiest nerve and almost daunts the bravest heart.

In their habits they are very unsociable, and are only seen together during the amatory season.  When that is over the male tiger betakes him again to his solitary predatory life, and the tigress becomes, if possible, fiercer than he is, and buries herself in the gloomiest recesses of the jungle.  When the young are born, the male tiger has often been known to devour his offspring, and at this time they are very savage and quarrelsome.  Old G., a planter in Purneah, once came across a pair engaged in deadly combat.  They writhed and struggled on the ground, the male tiger striking tremendous blows on the chest and flanks of his consort, and tearing her skin in strips, while the tigress buried her fangs in his neck, tearing and worrying with all the ferocity of her nature.  She was battling for her young.  G. shot both the enraged combatants, and found that one of the cubs had been mangled, evidently by his unnatural father.  Another, which he picked up in a neighbouring bush, was unharmed, but did not survive long.  Pairs have often been shot in the same jungle, but seldom in close proximity, and it accords with all experience that they betray an aversion to each other’s society, except at the one season.  This propensity of the father to devour his offspring seems to be due to jealousy or to blind unreasoning hate.  To save her offspring the female always conceals her young, and will often move far from the jungle which she usually frequents.

When the cubs are able to kill for themselves, she seems to lose all pleasure in their society, and by the time they are well grown she usually has another batch to provide for.  I have, however, shot a tigress with a full-grown cub—­the hunt described in the last chapter is an instance—­and on several occasions, my friend George has shot the mother with three or four full-grown cubs in attendance.  This is however rare, and only happens I believe when the mother has remained entirely separate from the company of the male.