"THE ROYAL BENGAL TIGER."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Snt,—Allow me to point out a slight mistake in your review of an article in this month's Fraser's Magazine. I refer to the fol- lowing sentence, regarding the statement that tigers have been known to ascend trees :—" Their weight," says your reviewer, " is not the obstacle, as they are much stronger, weight for weight, than the grizzly bear, which will ascend at once after honey."
The grizzly (or grisly—the former allusive to his colour, the latter to his fierceness) is unable to climb trees. Moreover, his strength is so vast, that 1 should doubt the tiger's superiority in that respect.
When travelling in the Hudson's Bay Company's territories, I chanced to hear two anecdotes .precisely bearing on the case, as to which (having elsewhere related them at length) I need now only ask to state that the one describes the adventures of two Indians, who took refuge in a tree when pursued by a grizzly ; while the other narrates the attack on four buffalo (bison) bulls by a bear of that species, the fight ending in the death of all the combatants.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Roehampton House, February 9. SOUTHESII.
[Lord Dunraven confirms Lord Southesk, and we have clearly been misled as to the grizzly bear, but we still cling to the tiger's strength, weight for weight. Could a bear no heavier than a tiger jump with a cow in its mouth?—En. Spectator.]
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