148 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATUBAL mST. SOCIJSry, Vol. XXV. 



No. IV.— AN ARBOREAL PANTHER. 



In the Miscellaneous Notes of Volumes XVII of the Journal there was 

 some correspondence about panthers putting their kills up trees. Though 

 two members described the habit as " common " or "not uncommon," in the 

 specific instances quoted the animals appear to havt> been deposited at no 

 great height from the ground and the following account may provide some 

 points of fresh interest. Last hot weather when camping at K. in this 

 district I had goats out for 3 nights before one was killed. This was 

 dragged some 50 yards and left practically intact hanging over the fork of 

 a large pipul tree. The goat had been tied to a log, the exact dimensions 

 of which I forget but it must have been 6 or 7 feet long and weighed 

 perhaps 40 lbs. This had stuck in the fork 11 or \'l feet from the ground 

 and the goat hung suspended on the other side. I. sat up in a well 

 concealed machan till dark, but though the place was quiet and it was 

 unlikely the panther had been lying up within hearing, it did not return. 

 Next morning 1 had to move camp. 



At X'mas I was again at K. and had goats out in the same bit of jungle 

 as well as in an isolated bit of rather light jungle a mile away and on the 

 far side of the village, open fields and a broad tank. Here a panther 

 made his X'mas dinner off one of them. It had been tied to a small bush 

 and the panther must have tugged persistently to remove it, for neither rope 

 nor bush had given away and the knob had finally slipped over the top, 

 baring it of leaves and twigs. Thirty yards away lay a lot of the goat's 

 hair but the goat itself was nowhere to be found. Finally we came to the 

 conclusion that the panther must have finished it " with the bones and the 

 beak" in honour of the day, and, it was decided to sit over a freshlive goat. 

 We looked up to select a tree and there high above us was the goat ! It 

 was in the fork of a ' mutti ' tree 23 feet from the ground by measurement. 

 The tree was quite a slender one, 2 feet 9 inches in circumference at the 

 foot and with only two branches below that over which the goat hung and 

 one of these close below it. 



Though but little of the goat was eaten and as before there was little 

 likelihood of the panther having heard the machan being built, yet it failed 

 to return before dark and 1 had not the hardihood to wait below in the 

 hopes of an overhead shot against the stars. 



Next morning the remains of the goat were found in a banyan tree 

 about 100 yards away. Only the head and part of the skin were left and 

 these deposited 12 or 14 feet from the ground. I sat up again that 

 evening but with no better luck than before. 



It is interesting to speculate what induced this habit — presuming the 

 .same panther to have been concerned in each case. A natural suggestion 

 was that it was done to secure its meal from red dogs which are plentiful 

 in the jungle in which the first kill occurred, but its actions must have 

 been guided by instinct rather than reason, for in that case though the 

 branch over which the goat hung was not less than 11 feet up, the goat 

 itself suspended at the end of the rope stretched down to within easy 

 reach of any dog. 



Possibly a further acquaintance with the same animal will throw more 

 light on the question. The habit of only returning late to its kill may also 

 be one of its characteristics. 



Dhakwar, Sth Jamtarij \^\7 . J. R. JACOB, i.p. 



No. v.— NOTE ON THE SCALY ANTEATER {MANIS 

 CBA SSI CA UDA TA ) . 



About 3 p.m. on the llth February 1914, in the North Toungoo Division, 

 I noticed close to my tent what I thought was a snake coiled round the 



