MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 529 



No. XVII.— EXTRAORDINARY COURAGE OF A PANTHER. 



I think perhaps the following account of a panther may be of some interest, 

 as it seemed to me rather extraordinary. I was sitting up over a goat last April, 

 ■near a village called Conapur, Indur District. It was a windy night, half moon 

 and rather cloudy. A panther killed my goat about 8-30 p.m., and while he was 

 lying over it I fired two barrels at him from a Paradox. Unfortunately I 

 missed him and he stood up, but did not move a yard away. Directly he bad set- 

 tled down to the goat again, which was almost immediately, I fired another two 

 barrels at him and missed again, whereupon he jumped up and trotted away 

 for about 20 yards, but I could see him the whole time and he was back again 

 at the goat in less than a minute. This time in my hurry I put two of the 

 empty cartridges I had just fired into the Paradox and clicked them off. This 

 put him off more than the explosions had done, as he galloped away, but 

 was back again in about two minutes. I again fired two barrels and 

 hit him badly, the second shot eventually getting him about 11 a.m. next 

 morning. He was a full-grown male, measuring as he lay 7' 1", parti- 

 cularly fat and in very good condition. He had killed and taken away 

 a goat from the same village two days before, so could not have been really 

 hungry. I found all five shots next morning : two of them had hit the goat, 

 one was about a foot short, the other two about a yard over it. As the panther 

 each time that I fired was lying on the far side of the goat, all shots must have 

 been unpleasantly close. The goat could not have been more than 12 yards 

 away from me and I was on quite a low banyan tree, with little cover. I have 

 missed three or four panthers at night, but have never known one come back 

 again. Considering the point-blank range, it seems quite extraordinary that a 

 panther should take so little notice of four barrels and two miss fires. Could 

 you let me know if panthers are in the habit of coming back so soon after being 

 fired at, and if you have ever heard of a similar case. 



L. C. BRODIE. 

 Trimulgherry, Deccan, 

 December 1903. 



No. XVIII.— OCCURRENCE OF SARCOGRAMMUS INDICUS (THE 

 RED-WATTLED LAPWING) IN THE DIBRUGARH DISTRICT, 



UPPER ASSAM. 



In view of the fact that Blanford gives the distribution of Sarcogrammus 

 wdicus on the east to Sylhet and Cachar and states that it is not recorded 

 from Upper Assam I record the occurrence of an adult female. This bird 

 a single, was obtained on a sandy bank on the River Debra, a short distance 

 above here, on the 5th December, 



H. STEVENS. 



RUNGAGORA, UPPER ASSAM, 



December 1903. 



