TIGER!

Most of the adjectives and metaphors that initially come to mind to describe tigers seem to have originally come from them. Poetry in motion. Predatory cunning. We don't use other animal or human traits to describe tigers; we use tigers to describe the world. Or to sell cereal, hawk gasoline, or bestow on sports teams the combination of controlled ferocity and grace that William Blake called ``fearful symmetry.'' Poetry can't elevate a tiger. Being the thing itself, a tiger is already elevated. But pictures like the ones in this book are good. And facts are good, too. They ground wonderment in knowledge. How'd you like to be able to carry 50 pounds of meat in your stomach? This is just one of the facts in this companion text to a PBS installment of the In the Wild series. Barnes, who writes on wildlife for The Guardian in England, covers the lives and shrinking habitats of Siberian, Indian, Sumatran, and Indochinese tigers. He also writes about poaching and efforts to stop it. (75 color photos, 75 b&w photos)