MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 517 



Thi3 is not the first instance of the kind of which I have heard, as a case was 

 reported to me about a year ago of a panther in another neighbourhood being 

 found drowned in a well. Of course they are comparatively thirsty-natured 

 beasts, but a panther is not the animal that one expects to miss his footing. 



The following panther story is not a personal experience, but it is perfectly 

 authentic ; the incident occurred last June not many miles from where I 

 was in camp at the time, and the skin of the panther was brought to me a 

 few days afterwards. Two men, Koli Thakardas, were in the jungle, 

 cutting wood for hut-building purposes, when a panther sprang out from 

 among some rocks and seized one of them by the side. The boy attacked 

 (he was about 18 years of age) did not lose his head, but grabbed the panther's 

 jaw with one hand and one of its ears with the other, at the same time calling to 

 his brother for assistance. The latter, a strongly-built young fellow, ran up, 

 got astride the panther's back and smashed in its skull with a fairly heavy piece 

 of the wood he had been cutting up ! The panther, a female, must, judging 

 from its skin, have been about 6 feet, or rather less in length. The younger 

 of the two Kolis was rather severely mauled, and had to spend ten days in 

 hospital ; I saw them both a few days after the incident, and they were most 

 matter-of-fact about it. They brought me, too, the bit of a shillelah with which 

 the beast had been knocked on the head, and I have kept it as a souvenir. It was 

 suggested that the panther might have had a family near by, which would have 

 accounted for her unusual boldness in attacking two grown men in broad day- 

 light, but although a search was made, no trace of any cubs was found. 



In this Agency, as apparently in other districts, the after effects of the 

 famine are manifested, in one direction, in the increase of man-eating among 

 the tigers and panthers. While the irretrievably confirmed man-eating panther, 

 however, is fortunately a rarity, the number of panthers that have taken to 

 occasionally going in for a human meal is considerable. The victim is usually 

 seized when asleep, not infrequently from inside a hut. 



A. H. MOSSE. 

 Sadra Mahi Kantha, 

 30 th August 1903. 



No. III. (6)-SOME PANTHER NOTES. 



On the 8th February last, a Biluch lad came to the telegraph office here for 

 treatment. He had deep wounds in the shoulder and forehead and slight 

 scratches on back and sides. He stated he had been attacked by a panther at 

 Rutch — 20 miles to the north-easfc of the station — and gave the following 

 account of his adventure : — 



" Two evenings ago, one of his father's bullocks was missing ; he 

 tracked it towards the hills till dusk, when he found it lying in a nullah, 

 alive, but blood was oozing from a wound in its neck. Under a bush, a 

 short distance off, he saw an animal, which in the dusk he took to be a 

 jackal, and threw a stone at it to drive it away. The stone struck the 



