280 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



or a cane-brake in their midst or adjacent, and 

 nothing is more common than for a leopard to take 

 up its abode in one of these places and to prey upon 

 their dogs and cattle. I have killed many of these 

 animals, having shot them on foot, off elephants and 

 out of "marts" or machans, and on one occasion I 

 was instrumental in ridding a locality of two families 

 of man-eating panthers as described hereafter. I never 

 shot but one " chita," the only one I ever came across 

 in the wild state. Judging from the numbers of skins 

 brought in to me whilst in East Africa, I should say 

 the chita, or hunting leopard, is far more plentiful 

 there than in India. The first panther I shot was at 

 Condapilly, while almost a griff. They were then very 

 plentiful there, and scarcely a day passed without a 

 " kill " of some sort taking place. The large Hooniman 

 monkey was a frequent prey, and we used to find 

 portions of the victims very frequently. The panther 

 I killed was a well-known one. For five or six years 

 everybody who had been in command there had 

 endeavoured to rid the place of this beast, but with- 

 out avail. I had sat up for him a dozen times. 

 Mogul Beg, the shikarie, had been after him for 

 years, and although he had shot many others, he had 

 never got a crack at the " chor " or thief, as the 

 animal was christened. Sitting up for this notorious 

 animal over a " kill " was useless, for he never returned 

 to his victim ; but by the merest chance I discovered 

 that he generally followed a narrow footpath leading 

 up the hillside, where he had his den, and down 

 which he came nightly in search of prey. I have 

 said elsewhere that the old Mahrattas had fortified 

 this country for miles around, the walls connecting 



