276 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1891. 



of men. On arrival at the place I found the man had, in order to save the 

 carcase being carried further away, tied the forelegs together and driven 

 a stake through into the ground, and had also cut the nitlao down all round, so 

 as to give me a better chance. I told Keralli and the two men to go back about 

 a quarter of a mile down the nullah and remain there until they heard me 

 shout to them. I then sat up in the machan until about nine o'clock, but as 

 nothing appeared and there was very little moonlight, I shouted to the men, 

 when to my astonishment and indignation they answered me back from the nullah 

 about sixty yards off. On going to them I found they were sitting 

 round a small fire they had lighted close under the bank and which I had not 

 noticed, as I had been sitting with my back towards them. This, I have no 

 doubt, accounted for the panther not putting in an appearance. I went back 

 to camp in a very bad temper, and started at daybreak next morning for Hal- 

 damulla. I, however, sent Keralli out to look after the panther, and he came to 

 me and reported that the panther had come back and pulled the carcase about 

 fifty yards further into the jungle and eaten a considerable portion more of it, but 

 he had not seen the panther. I should like to have got the other panther, to see 

 whether it was a male or female, but I feel certain from the size of the pugs 

 that it was male ; and if I am correct in supposing it to be a male, the question 

 arises, was the struggle that Keralli the tracker witnessed a fight between two 

 hungry animals of the same species with the ultimate intention of the victor 

 making a meal off the vanquished, or could it have been only a lovers' quarrel 

 which, ending in death, had furnished the male with food ? 



E. L. BARTON. 



Bombay, June, 1891. 



XII.— A MAN-KILLING BEAR, 



On the 24th May, 1891, Mr. E. L. Barton and I were encamped in the 

 State of Dharampore, near the Nassick Frontier, where Ave had gone on a short 

 shooting trip. About 9 A.M. on this day a man came running to our camp 

 to say that a man had been badly wounded by a bear near a village five miles 

 off, and that the bear had been marked down and surrounded by villagers in a 

 jungle close by. We started off as soon as possible, and after a long ride up a 

 hill, we came to the village where the man was who had been mauled. We found 

 him sitting in a hut and examined him. We found half of his face torn away 

 and hanging by shreds, his head deeply cut with a claw- wound, and his back 

 also badly mauled by the bear's claws. We got some water, cleaned his wounds, 

 and bound up his face with my pocket handkerchief. A desultory conversation 

 then went on between various members of the crowd and the man's wife as to 

 whether the man would live or not. There was a strong consensus of opinion 

 that the man woidd live, in which, I may say, I never for a moment shared. 



