The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

The Great Cats as Fighters. Tigers, when well matched, fight head to head and mouth to mouth, as do nearly all other carnivora, and at the same time they strike with their front paws. One of the finest spectacles I ever witnessed was a pitched battle between two splendid tigers, in a cage which afforded them ample room. With loud, roaring coughs, they sprang together, ears laid tight to their heads, eyes closed until only sparks of green and yellow fire flashed through four narrow slits, and their upper lips snarling high up to clear the glittering fangs beneath. Coughing, snarling, and often roaring furiously, each sprang for the other's throat, but jaw met jaw until their teeth almost cracked together. They rose fully erect on their hind legs, with their heads seven feet high, stood there, and smashed away with their paws, while tufts of hair flew through the air, and the cage seemed full of sparks. Neither gave the other a chance to get the throat hold, nor indeed to do aught else than ward off calamity; and each face was a picture of fury. This startling combat lasted a surprisingly long time, without noticeable advantage to either side. Finally the tigers backed away from each other, and when at a safe distance apart dropped their front feet to the floor, growling savagely and licking their lips wherever a claw had drawn blood. Of all the wild animals that are preyed upon by lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, and pumas, only half a dozen species do anything more than struggle to escape. The gaur and the wild buffalo of India are sufficiently vindictive in dealing with a human hunter whose aim is not straight, but both fly before the tiger, and count themselves lucky when they can escape with nothing worse to show than a collection of long slits on their sides and hind quarters made by his knife-like claws. They do not care to return to do battle for the sake of revenge, and seek to put the widest possible stretch of jungle between themselves and their dreaded enemy.