Cats' Play

MAN-EATERS OF KUMAON (235 pp.)--Jim Corbetf--Oxford ($2).

The fearful symmetry of Felis tigris is an old story to Jim Corbett.* Born (in 1875) in the tiger-haunted Kumaon Hills of India, he has been studying tiger tracks and tactics since he was old enough to tote a gun. In Man-Eaters of Kumaon (April co-selection--with Mary Jane Ward's The Snake Pit--of the Book-of-the-Month Club), he spins some fine, hair-raising yarns about tigers he has known.

Zoo-gawkers in general will appreciate his main point: a tiger is always hungry. Timid ones may be consoled to learn that not every tiger gets hungry enough to eat a man. Run-of-the-jungle specimens, it seems, prefer the flavor of buffalo, deer or cow. As a boy, Corbett ran into many tigers near his home. None bothered him so long as he left them alone.

Yet confirmed man-eaters--usually too old or too weak from, wounds to hunt in normal tiger style--will attack any human, and if left undisturbed will finish him off completely, including his blood-soaked clothes. They are rarely too old to be wary or too weak to be tough.

Man-eaters boldly invade Indian villages in the middle of the day, carrying off a victim like a cat carrying a bird. A well-built tiger, says Corbett, is strong enough to lug a full-grown cow for miles. One tigress calmly reared on her hind legs to pull a woman out of a tree before the eyes of her friends. The same animal nabbed a woman from the fields and, holding her by the small of the back ("her hair trailing on the ground on one side ... her feet on the other"), trotted off.

This was the Champawat maneater. She had been at large for years, and was supposed to have eaten more than 400 people when Corbett trailed and stopped her at last. He is proud of this kill, not so proud of some of the others he writes about. Admiring the courage and spirit of tigers, he deplores their bad habits, but insists they kill only to eat, are rarely "bloodthirsty" or "cruel."

* No kin to Gentleman Jim Corbett, first heavyweight champ under Marquess of Queensberry rules.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.