"This tiger, or tigers of this type, spread devastation among the peasant people during the
latter part of 1921 and the spring of 1922. Seeing several accounts of the terrible toll of
lives reported in the vernacular press in Foochow in April, 1922, with a description of the
animal responsible for this killing, I decided to send my cook down to spend a month or
so hunting him. The Chinese newspapers all referred to him as a 'Blue Tiger,' making
me all the more anxious that my cook go after it, since I was unable to do so.
"I instructed my cook to engage for the month a certain courageous hunter with
whom I
was acquainted. These two men soon connected up with the animal in the very midst of
his man killing. In one community sixty people had been killed during the previous few
weeks, one of them an especially good friend of mine. This man was digging ginger roots
in his garden at the end of his house near the Rocking Stone Monastery when the tiger
attacked, killing him and devouring him almost under the shadow of his own roof.
"Careful inquiry was made among eyewitnesses concerning this tiger during this
particular
period of killing, and three hundred people who had seen the animal at least once at close
quarters bore testimony as to markings, color, and size. One woman interviewed had a
very narrow escape when she was crouched down at the foot of some stone steps washing
clothes in a pool. The tiger lunged at her from above, passing completely over her and
landing in the water. He then became terrified and instead of attacking again swam across
the pool, clambering out on the other side with great difficulty. The woman was so
frightened that she was unable to return to her home, a few yards away, until help came.
"A very reliable hunter tells of having seen in April two of the dark-colored tigers
together. He was stalking cock pheasants among the foothill
s when he heard a tiger call
only a short distance away. Instead of trying to escape he concealed himself between two
large bowlders having a crevice through which he could look in the direction of the tiger.
Soon he saw a large blue tiger walk out of the
cover and begin to paw the ground in an
open space. This animal was in plain view, pawing and calling for near half an hour,
when a second and smaller tiger of the same type walked into the open. The two huge
cats stood for ten minutes in the open and then
moved off diagonally down the hill and
away from the concealed hunter. This man says the larger of the two would weigh more
than four hundred and fifty pounds."
