1 68 Wild Beasts 



petuate. Bamanjee (the Brahman) seems to have been 

 exceptionally honest in his dealings with the Captain, and 

 to have given him an opportunity, rarely accorded to the 

 hunters whom he swindled, for making observations upon 

 the habits and character of these beasts. Forsyth relates 

 his experiences in a way that will serve as a summary of 

 what has been already said about Felis pardns. "The 

 number of these animals in the districts around Jubbulpur 

 is very great. The low rocky hills, . . . full of hollows 

 and caverns, and overgrown with dense scrubby cover, 

 afford them their favorite retreats ; while numbers of 

 antelope and hog deer, goats, sheep, pariah dogs, and pigs 

 supply them with abundant food. A large male panther 

 will kill not very heavy cattle ; but as a rule they confine 

 themselves to the smaller animals mentioned. They 

 seldom reside very far from villages, prowling around 

 them at night in search of prey, and retreating to their 

 fastnesses before daybreak. Unlike the tiger, they care 

 little for the neighborhood of water, even in the hot 

 weather, drinking only at night, and generally at a 

 distance from their midday retreat." 



The scourge that a man-eating panther becomes, and 

 those traits which make him worse than either the lion or 

 tiger when he has taken to preying upon human beings, 

 have been already given at some length ; the following 

 statements, however, also by Forsyth, place the panther's 

 enterprise and hardihood before us very vividly : — 



" In my early hunting days I fell into the mistake of 

 most sportsmen in supposing that the panther might be 

 hunted on foot with less caution than the tiger. On two 



