TIGER SLAYER BY ORDER 



the horse-hair loop is replaced by looped ropes, to which 

 are fastened running nooses of gut. 



These Phas Pardhies wander from place to place, 

 snaring game, and are a perfect pest to the more legitimate 

 sportsman, frightening off the antelope, etc., for miles 

 around. However, as they are much addicted to crime, 

 too, they are usually under close supervision of the police, 

 and therefore their movements can be controlled to some 

 extent. 



But to come back to the subject with which this chapter 

 opened, I have said there is no animal in India so destruc- 

 tive as the panther, and though this is true it would be 

 perhaps more correct to say that its notoriety in this 

 respect is due, less to the rapacity evinced by individuals 

 of the species, than to the fact that, being so much more 

 numerous than any other dangerous beasts of prey, their 

 depredations are naturally of more frequent occurrence, 

 especially as regards cattle, goats, etc. 



As a menace to human life, the panther, even if a con- 

 firmed man-eater, is less dangerous than a tiger, for, in 

 the first place, being less powerful, its attack can often be 

 successfully resisted, and because for the same reason, 

 the injuries it is capable of inflicting are necessarily less 

 severe. Whereas in the case of tigers their greater weight 

 and strength renders their attack practically irresistible, 

 while their fangs and claws are so enormous that wounds 

 inflicted by either are naturally more serious, and there- 

 fore more likely to prove fatal than those made by a panther, 

 an animal so much smaller in every repect. 



A very sad example of this was the case of H , 



of the I.C.S., a great friend of mine, who was killed by a 

 tiger at Wargaon in the District of Khandesh, while I was 

 stationed there. He had wounded a tiger the previous 

 day, and while tracking it up was suddenly charged by 

 the beast, which had been lying up concealed in the shade 

 of an overhanging rock. 



As the tiger charged H fired both barrels into its 



face, but, failing to stop the beast, he turned, and was 

 trying to get away, when he slipped and fell forward. 

 The tiger was on to him at once, and seizing him by the 

 back carried him off some twenty paces. 

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