At a time when tigers were hunted in the name of sport, the Maharaja of Dholpur ordered a beat. Some two hundred men formed a wide semicircle, beating drums and canisters in order to flush out the tiger hiding in the undergrowth and drive him towards the hunters waiting in a vehicle at the opposite end. But the tiger in question had other ideas. Instead of running towards the vehicle, he whipped around and tore through the line of beaters.

In doing so, its right fore paw landed on the head of one of the beaters. There was a sickening sound of bones being crushed and the luckless man's head and neck simply disappeared within the thoracic cavity.

The tiger has phenomenal strength but doesn't use strength alone to knock down its prey. Essentially a loner, he believes in stealth and ambush. Thus he approaches his prey up-wind, so his smell won't give him away. And he patiently stalks his prey, advancing very, very slowly,

The legendary hunter-naturalist, Jim Corbett, has done much to put the record straight in favor of the tiger. According to Corbett, no tiger is by instinct a cattle lifter or man-eater because neither cattle nor man form part of his normal diet. But sometimes a tiger is driven to attack them because he cannot stalk or hunt down his natural prey, either on account of old age or a serious injury. Normally a tiger cleans his wounds with his tongue and they heal fast enough. But if the injury is deep, as that caused by porcupine quills or a stray bullet lodged in the flesh, or if one of his limbs is broken, the tiger is helpless. Unable to run and driven by pangs of hunger, the tiger attacks the easiest prey -- cattle and man. Thus cattle lifters and man-eaters are made, not born. The celebrated wildlife photographers Naresh and Rajesh Bedi who have made some spellbinding films on the tiger, once trailed a tigress for the purpose in Kanha National Park. They were never more than 30 to 50 feet away from the animal but she allowed their team to follow her closely because they had spent a lot of time with her and she had got used to them. But also because she had a good temper. "Never follow a tiger if it is stalking its prey!" warns Naresh Bedi.

The tiger is a nocturnal animal. Since he avoids the heat and the direct rays of the sun, most of the daylight hours are spent holed up near a nullah, lazing in shallow water or snatching some sleep in the cool of a clump of bamboo. Hunting time is dusk or later, sometimes just before the crack of dawn. But hunting in our tangled forests is no cakewalk. Only one in ten attempts leads to a successful kill. True, the tiger himself is not easy to spot, given his coloring and the black stripes that blend so perfectly with the general pattern of light and shade in the forest. But the forest has its own team of watchmen -- the kakar, langur and jungle babbler -- who are quick to spot a carnivore on the move and lose no time giving out the alarm call. The prey species too are alert, with a highly developed instinct for self preservation.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Maharaja Dholpur, Valmik Thapar, Bengal Tiger, Sometimes Sunderbans, According Corbett, , National Park, Rajesh Bedi, Jim Corbett, Naresh Bedi, prey species, sunderbans tiger, royal bengal tiger, tigress cubs, royal bengal, bengal tiger, tiger attacks, male tiger, fresh water, animal tiger, black stripes,
Approximate Word count = 1880
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)