ANIMAL DEFENSIVE TACTICS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] have been much interested in your extract in the Spectator of September 9th from Dr. Woods Hutchinson's article in the Contemporary Review, on horses and wolves. In my days of Indian service I remember hearing a similar account of encounters between a tiger and a herd of wild buffaloes. I was told that when a buffalo herd spied, or scented, an approaching tiger, they formed a ring, tails inwards. If the tiger sprang, he was received upon the horned forehead of the nearest buffalo,—not upon the horns, for these curve backwards over the shoulders and are in- capable of goring. But if the tiger evaded the blow of the solid forehead, and fastened his claws in the comparatively insensitive hump, the buffalo, and all the rest of the herd, would face to the right-about, and butt the assailant to death. I do not give this statement as of my own knowledge, but it was told me by officers who bad served in Assam, and in the terai of the North-West Provinces, and in other places where herds of wild buffaloes were to be found in proximity to the haunts of tigers. As I know you are interested in stories of animal instinct, I place this statement at your disposal.—I
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