21 A^ JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI. 



aud stood within a yard or two of it, but the panther did not even stop 

 eating and neither animal molested the other. Buffaloes are supposed to be 

 deadly enemies of the great felidte and ready to attack them at once, but 

 they have been known to graze close to a kill on which a panther was feed- 

 ing, without taking any notice of it. I tried to recover a wounded panther 

 with the aid of a herd of buffaloes on one occasion. The buffaloes passed 

 through the jungle without taking any notice of the panther which I found 

 dead close to where the herd had passed. Fanthers, like tigers, will fight 

 to the death on occasion and the victor will devour the vanquished. Seve- 

 ral such instances are on record in the Journal. I have never heard of 

 an encounter betAveen a tiger and a panther but have twice driven a tiger 

 and a panther out of the same cover, where they appeared to be resting in 

 amitj^ 



10. Man-eateks. 



I have always found a strange fascination in the history of man- 

 eaters. It would make a good subject for a book. The account of the 

 infamous man-eater of Seoni given by Sterndale in his Natural History, 

 and Sanderson's graphic description of the man-eating tigress he disposed 

 of, cannot fail to arouse interest. The annual returns of the number of 

 people killed by wild animals prove that, although these monsters that 

 prey on human beings may not be as common as they were, they still 

 infest many districts in India. An account of the destruction of the man- 

 eating panther which killed the Brinjara boy whose bodj^ was found in the 

 fork of a tree, is given in an early number of the Journal. The child was 

 taken in the dead of night when sleeping beside his mother. The animal, 

 which had already killed two human beings, was beaten out and shot by 

 Mr. Davies, Deputy Commissioner of Basim, who mentions that the 

 panther was in milk and had cubs which were not found. He. also 

 remarks that the animal was in good condition and had a good coat. 

 Indeed, I have never seen it suggested that man-eating panthers are 

 mangy, a condition popularly ascribed to the tiger, but not borne out by 

 evidence. The only man-eating tiger I have seen, which I shot twenty- 

 one years ago, had a tine, brightly-coloured skin. 



Panthers perhaps take more readily to man-eating than tigers. Their 

 habits bring them into closer and more frequent contact with human habit- 

 ations ; careless mothers leave their children where they may fall a prey to 

 the prowler of the night and in wandering round villages it is probable 

 that a panther, even though not a confirmed man-eater, will always be 

 ready to carry oft' a child if no one is watching. I had to do with a child- 

 stealing panther, soon after the destruction of the one above referred to. 

 This beast had taken up its abode in open country where the only cover 

 to be found was that aftbrded by the fastnesses of a winding river, with 

 deep and innumerable fissures in its banks, now in the month of May 

 nearly dried up by the heat of the summer sun and the scorching winds 

 that swept across the plain. 



The panther used to prowl round the villages at night and pick up .some- 

 times, from the side of their sleeping parents, the children who slept for 

 the sake of the cool night air on the thresholds of the huts. Then it took 

 to attacking adult people in broad daylight. Curiously enough, these 

 people could give no clear account of the monster that assailed them. 

 Some averred that it was black and tailless, a common superstition of the 

 were-wolf kind, prevalent also in Eastern Eiu'ope, connecting the man- 

 killing wild animal with the form of a human monster. 1 thought it 

 probable from the accounts given that this animal was a wolf, but when 

 I encamped at one of the villages, and lay out at night in the shadow of 



