Man-Eaters of Kumaon Quotes

“Those who have never seen a leopard under favourable conditions in his natural surroundings can have no conception of the grace of movement, and beauty of colouring, of this the most gracefuL and the most beautiful of all animales in our Indian jungles.”
― Jim Corbett, Man-Eaters of Kumaon

“Minutes passed, each pulling my hopes down a little lower from the heights to which they had soared, and then, when tension on my nerves and the weight of the heavy rifle were becoming unbearable, I heard a stick snap at the upper end of the thicket. Here was an example of how a tiger can move through the jungle. From the sound she had made I knew her exact position, had kept my eyes fixed on the spot, and yet she had come, seen me, stayed some time watching me, and then gone away without my having seen a leaf or a blade of grass move.”
― Jim Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon

“When I see the expression ' as cruel as a tiger' and ' as bloodthirsty as a tiger' in print, I think of a small boy armed with an old muzzle-loading gun—the right barrel of which was split for six inches of its length, and the stock and barrels of which were kept from falling apart by lashings of brass wire—wandering through the jungles of the terai and bhabar in the days when there were ten tigers to every one that now survives; sleeping anywhere he happened to be when night came on, with a small fire to give him company and warmth, wakened at intervals by
the calling of tigers, sometimes in the distance, at other times near at hand; throwing another stick on the fire and turning over and continuing his interrupted sleep without one thought of unease; knowing from his own short experience and from what others, who like himself had spent their days in the jungles, had told him, that a tiger, unless molested, would do him no harm; or during daylight hours avoiding any tiger he saw, and when that was not possible, standing perfectly still until it had passed and gone, before continuing on his way. And I think of him on one occasion stalking half-a-dozen jungle fowl that were feeding in the open, and on creeping up to a plum bush and standing up to peer over, the bush heaving and a tiger walking out on the far side and, on clearing the bush, turning round and looking at the boy with an expression on its face which said as clearly as any words, 'Hello, kid, what the hell are you doing here?' and, receiving no answer, turning round and waiting away very slowly without once looking back.”
― Jim Corbett, Man-Eaters of Kumaon

“The steel blue of the fern-fringed pool where the water rests a little before cascading over rock and shingle to draw breath again in another pool more beautiful than the one just left - the flash of the gaily coloured kingfisher as he breaks the surface of the water, shedding a shower of diamonds from his wings as he rises with a chirp of delight, a silver minnow held firmly in his vermilion bill - the belling of the sambhar and the clear tuneful call of the chital apprising the jungle folk that the tiger, whose pugmarks show wet on the sand where a few minutes before he crossed the river, is out in search of his dinner”
― Jim Corbett, Man-Eaters of Kumaon

“I have told you the story, and while I have been telling it, Robin - the biggest-hearted and the most faithful friend man ever had, has gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds, where I know I shall find him waiting for me.”
― Jim Corbett, Man-Eaters of Kumaon

“that there is no more terrible thing than to live and have one’s being under the shadow of a man-eater,”
― Jim Corbett, Man-Eaters Of Kumaon

“tiger is a large-hearted gentleman with boundless courage and that when he is exterminated—as exterminated he will be unless public opinion rallies to his support—India will be the poorer, having lost the finest of her fauna.”
― Jim Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon

“until”
― Jim Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon

“Had Champion shot his tigers with a rifle instead of with a camera, his trophies would long since have lost their hair and consigned to the dustbin, whereas the records made by his camera are constant source of pleasure to him”
― Jim Corbett, MAN-EATERS OF KUMAON

“A tiger's function in the scheme of things is to help maintain balance in nature and if, on rare occasions when driven by dire necessity, he kills a human being or when his natural food has been ruthlessly exterminated by man , he kills two percent of the cattle he is alleged to have killed, it is not fair that for these acts a whole species should be branded as being cruel and blood thirsty.”
― Jim Corbett, MAN-EATERS OF KUMAON

“There have been occasions when life has hung by a thread and others when a light purse and disease resulting from exposure and strain have made the going difficult, but for all these occasions I am amply rewarded if my hunting has resulted in saving one human life”
― Jim Corbett, MAN-EATERS OF KUMAON

“Corbett's exploits brought him fame as a hunter. His book turned him into a legend.

- Ruskin Bond on Jim Corbett”
― Jim Corbett, Man-Eaters of Kumaon

“In my study, next to my desk, is a locked bookcase that contains a collection of volumes I value more than any of the hundreds of other books that fill a multitude of shelves in our home. Of these precious publications, the most prized and well-guarded is a slim first edition of 104 pages, simply titled Jungle Stories by Jim Corbett. The cover is of plain brown paper, with no illustrations or colouring. This thin little book was privately printed by Corbett, for family and friends, at the London Press in Nainital in 1935. Only a hundred copies were produced, of which very few remain. My copy came to me through my parents. They were given it by friends, who had once been Corbett’s neighbours in Nainital. By the time I received it, the book had been covered with a protective sleeve of clear plastic. The title page is signed by Jim Corbett, in a neat, fastidious hand. Several years after Jungle Stories was published, Lord Linlithgow, Viceroy of India from 1936-43, requested a copy. He had met Corbett, who assisted in organizing viceregal shoots in the terai and was already regarded as a legendary shikari and raconteur. After reading the book, Linlithgow recommended that it be published by the Oxford University Press in Bombay. Jungle Stories is, essentially, the first draft of Man-eaters of Kumaon. Several of the chapters are identical, including stories of ‘The Pipal Pani Tiger’ and ‘The Chowgarh Tigers’, as well as an angling interlude, ‘The Fish of My Dreams.’ Corbett expanded this book into its present form by adding six more tales, including an account of the first man-eater he killed in 1907, near Champawat. This tigress was responsible for the deaths of 436 victims and her destruction helped cement Corbett’s reputation as a hunter. In recognition of his success, Sir J. P. Hewett, Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces, presented him with a .275 Rigby-Mauser rifle. An engraved citation on a silver plaque was fixed to the stock. Corbett later bequeathed this weapon to the Oxford University Press, who sent it to their head offices in England. Eventually, the gun was confiscated by the police in Oxford because the publishers didn’t have a licence. For a number of years, John Rigby & Co., gunsmiths, displayed the rifle at their showroom in London, along with a copy of Jungle Stories. In February 2016, Corbett’s rifle was purchased at auction by an American hunter for $250,000. Following this, the rifle was brought to India for a week and briefly displayed at Corbett Tiger Reserve, as part of a promotional event. The editor at OUP, who shepherded Man-eaters of Kumaon to publication, was R. E. ‘Hawk’ Hawkins, himself a legend, who contributed greatly to India’s canon of nature writing. In his introduction to a collection of Corbett’s stories, Hawkins describes how this book came into his hands:”
― Jim Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon

“A leopard, on the other hand, even after it has killed scores of human beings, never loses its fear of man; and, as it is unwilling to face human beings in daylight, it secures its victims when they are moving about at night or by breaking into their houses at night. Owing”
― Jim Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon

“As a general rule—to which I have seen no exceptions—tigers are responsible for all kills that take place in daylight, and leopards are responsible for all kills that take place in the dark. Both animals are seminocturnal forest-dwellers, have much the same habits, employ similar methods of killing, and both are capable of carrying their human victims for long distances. It would be natural, therefore, to expect them to hunt at the same hours; and that they do not do so is due to the difference in courage of the two animals. When”
― Jim Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon