'-\ - ■ ;■■'■• ■ ■ • •' FANTHERS. ' ' ' , . _ 271 



this habit, always lay in water in the heat of the day with nothing but thie 

 tip of his tail showing above the surf5,ce ! I have never known a panther 

 take to water, and they seem to like wetting their fur as little as the 

 domestic cat. Is it that the tiger is an immigrant into the tropics from 

 northern climes, and is accordingly impatient of the heat ? 



Panthers are comparatively seldom met with by chance, and have to be 

 sought for. I shot one one morning by the side of a forest road where it 

 was sitting up on its haunches like a dog about eighty yards off. A lucky 

 shot hit it in the side of the head. I put up another when out partridge 

 shooting and killed it with a charge of No. 1 shot at very close range. 

 Those are the only two 1 have met by chance although I have spent months 

 in country infested by them. They are timid and retiring, and no doubt 

 conceal themselves on the approach of a human being. An unwounded 

 panther is not generally a dangerous animal. I have known one kill & 

 woman who came suddenly upon it when she was cutting grass ; this 

 panther, which I shot, was not a man-eater; another one seized a man who 

 was lying asleep in the open, wrapped up in a black blanket. It perhaps 

 mistook him for a goat, and it dropped him as soon as he cried out. A re- 

 markable instance of a panther charging a sportsman is given in Volume 

 IX, page 96, of the Journal, where Mr. Millett relates that he was walking 

 in the jungle when the animal suddenly rushed at him from a distance, but 

 swerved aside, just brushing his leg, on being struck on the back with the 

 gun. Probably the panther mistook him at first for lawful game. I have 

 myself nearly trodden on a panther. I was going down a hill covered 

 with sparse jungle when I smelt the animal, and, looking down, saw it lying 

 under a bush at my feet. It rose and walked over the slope into denser 

 thicket where I had thought it to be at first and out of which I then drove 

 and killed it. My chief attendant considered that I had had a very narrow 

 tiscape, and after our arrival in camp performed a mysterious ceremony, 

 passing a live fowl several times over my head to exorcise the spirit of the 

 beast. When much harried an unwounded panther will, however, turn 

 and rend its pursuers. Some Brinjaras in my service marked down one 

 of these animals under a bush on a hillside. I had already driven this 

 animal out twice in a neighbouring ravine and had fired at and missed it. 

 I now walked up to the place expecting to get an easy shot, but the beast 

 ran down the hill, only giving me a glimpse of its tale over the top. I was 

 accompanied by a number of beaters and followers. We gave chase, the 

 panther flying down the road like a scalded cat, with the crowd in full cry 

 after it. It was now getting on for dusk, and the animal took refuge in a 

 thickly wooded nullah. I quickly organised a beat, but instead of coming 

 towards my post, the panther turned on the beaters some twenty yards 

 from me, and seized a fifteen-year old boy by the back of the head and 

 neck. A sepoy with the beaters fired a shot. I could not fire owing to the 

 •crowd, and the panther dropped his victim and dashed back into the 

 jungle. By the time 1 had picked up the boy and attended to him it was 

 too dark to find the panther, although its position was indicated by a flock 

 of crows cawing in a tree above. This boy was not very severely hurt, the 

 panther fortunately having seized him " lengthways," and its teeth slipped 

 on the skull, the lower canines penetrating the neck to some depth. His 

 head was screwed to one side, but 1 gradually got it straight in the course 

 of a few days, and he was soon well on the road to recovery. > 



7. Pantheks and their peey. 



The panther appears almost invariably to seize its prey by the throat, 

 -and follows the same rule in attacking human beings. But people mauled 

 in this manner are generally seized by the arm or shoulder, which are .bo 



