They all feel that they have come there for a greater need than _hunger_--they have come there to quench their _thirst_; and the pain of thirst is greater than the pain of hunger.
They feel that the pain of thirst is common to them all; that is, they all suffer from that pain. Different animals _eat_ different things; but they must all _drink water_. And in that fellow feeling there is peace among them all.
My dear children, let me impress this upon your minds, while you are still young. When you grow up, you may sometimes be tempted to doubt that an all-merciful Providence watches over us. Then remember these wonders of the jungle that I have described to you. And remember especially the Water Hole, where all animals are like brothers, where even the tiger and the lamb drink and lie down together in peace.
The Special Qualities of Tiger and Tigress
Now I am going to tell you a few more things about the tiger, from which you will realize what a wonderful animal he is.
First, the tiger's _size_. The finest specimen of the tiger is the Royal Bengal tiger. Such a tiger, when full grown, is sometimes seven feet long, without including the tail; the tail is usually half as long as the body. The tigress is slightly smaller.
In height a Bengal tiger often measures three and a half feet from the shoulder to the ground; so his head would be more than four feet from the ground. Hence, if you take his length into account, you will understand that the tiger is really the largest feline or animal of the Cat Tribe.
I do not think that you have often seen a really large tiger in the zoo. Most of the tigers in a zoo were caught as cubs; that is, the mother or the father was shot by hunters, and the cubs were captured alive.
Now, just think. If a human child were locked up in a room all his life, without any exercise, then he would be very stunted and small, even when he had reached the age of a man. So a tiger cub, brought up in a cage all its life, never grows to its proper size. For this reason most of the tigers in a zoo are much smaller than those tigers that grow up in the jungle.
The most wonderful thing about the tiger is his strength; he is the strongest animal of the Cat Tribe. That is proved by the way in which he carries his prey. If the prey be a deer or a man, he seizes the prey in his jaws by the middle of the body--just as a cat seizes a mouse! And the tiger carries such a prey in that manner to his den, which may be more than a mile away.