Museum records give the impression that the tiger had been shot for spending too much time near a village in India. Meanwhile, the story of a tiger shot for its mere presence at the edge of a village became a legend of the killer of one man, then of two people, then the serial killer of forty. This myth may have developed following a 1906 guidebook by Henry Crowther, which said it "destroyed forty bullocks in six weeks and was considered so formidable that no native dare venture into the jungle where this noble beast reigned supreme." The "Yorkshire Evening Post" said, "We'll never know for certain whether the Leeds Tiger really lived up to its dangerous reputation, but today it sends a shiver down the spines of visitors to Leeds City Museum." However the pelt may now be dangerous after all, in a sense, as the Victorians will have preserved it with arsenical soap. For over a century it has sagged somewhat, as can be seen in the photograph. Nevertheless, in the early 1860s the tiger was considered an object of beauty:The setting up of this tiger is so natural and so perfect in posture and anatomical detail, that it is certainly to be looked upon as a work of art quite as much as an object for scientific observation ... Professor Owen has more than once stated that it is the finest and largest animal of its species not only in England but in Europe.