JUST TIGERS

I THINK that all sportsmen who have had the opportunity of
indulging in the twin sports of shooting tigers with a camera
and shooting them with a rifle will agree with me that the
difference between these two forms of sport is as great, if not
greater, than the taking of a trout on light tackle in a snow-fed
mountain stream, and the killing of a fish on a fixed rod on
the sun-baked bank of a tank.

Apart from the difference in cost between shooting with a
camera and shooting with a rifle, and the beneficial effect it has
on our rapidly decreasing stock of tigers, the taking of a good

lust Tigers 217

photograph gives far more pleasure to the sportsman than the
atemisition of a trophy; and further, while the photograph is of
hfferest to all lovers of wild life, the trophy is only of interest to
ttie individual who acquired it. As an illustration, I would in-
stance Fred Champion. Had Champion shot his tigers with a
rifle instead of with a camera his trophies would long since have
lost their hair and been consigned to the dustbin, whereas the
% ecords made by his camera are a constant source of pleasure to
lim, and are of interest to sportsmen in all parts of the world.

It was looking at the photographs in Champion's book With
> Camera in Tiger-Land that first gave me the idea of taking
Aofpgraphs of tigers. Champion's photographs were taken with

still camera by flashlight and I decided to go one better and
try to take tiger pictures with a cinecamera by daylight. The
gift by a very generous friend of a Bell and Ho well i6-mm.
camera put just the weapon I needed into my hands, and the
' freedom of the Forests ' which I enjoy enabled me to roam at
large over a very wide field. For ten years I stalked through
many hundreds of miles of tiger country, at times being seen off
by tigers that resented my approaching their kills, and at other
times being shooed out of the jungle by tigresses that objected
to my goifcg near their cubs. During this period I learnt a little
about the habits and ways of tigers, and though I saw tigers on,
possibly, two hundred occasions I did not succeed in getting one
satisfactory picture. I exposed films on many occasions, but the
results were disappointing owing either to overexposure, under-
exposure, obstruction of grass or leaves or cobwebs on the lens;
and in one case owing to the emulsion on the film having been
melted while being processed.

Finally in 1938 I decided to devote the whole winter to making
one last effort to get a good picture. Having learnt by experience
that it was not possible to get a haphazard picture of a tiger, my
first consideration was to find a suitable site, and I eventually
selected an open ravine fifty yards wide, with a tiny stream

218 Man-eatgrs of Kumaon

flowing down the centre of it, and flanked on either side by dense
tree and scrub jungle. To deaden the sound of my camera when
taking pictures at close range I blocked the stream in several
places, making miniature waterfalls a few inches high. I then cast
round for my tigers, and having located seven, in three widely
separated areas, started to draw them a few yards at a time to mv
jungle studio. This was a long and a difficult job, with many
setbacks and disappointments, for the area in which I was oper-
ating is heavily shot over, and it was only by keeping my tigers
out of sight that I eventually got them to the exact spot where I
wanted them. One of the tigers for some reason unknown to me
left the day after her arrival, but not before I had taken a pic-
ture of her; the other six I kept together and I exposed a thou-
sand feet of film on them. Unfortunately it was one of the
wettest winters we have ever had and several hundred feet of the
film were ruined through moisture on the lens, underexposure,
and packing of the film inside the camera due to hurried and care-
less threading. But, even so, I have got approximately six hun-
dred feet of film of which I am inordinately proud, for they are
a living record of six full grown tigers four males, two of which
are over ten feet, and two females, one of which is a white tigress
filmed in daylight, at ranges varying from ten to sixty feet.

The whole proceeding from start to finish took four and a half
months, and during the countless hours I lay near the tiny stream
and my miniature waterfalls, not one of the tigers ever saw me.

The stalking to within a few feet of six tigers in daylight
would have been an impossible feat, so they were stalked in the
very early hours of the morning, before night had gone and
daylight come the heavy winter dew making this possible and
were filmed as light, and opportunity, offered.

No matter how clear i6-mm. films may appear when projected
they do not make good enlargements. However, the accompany-
ing photographs will give some idea of my jungle studio and
the size and condition of the subjects I filmed.