SOME BEES 151 



could not account for. I was surprised that the 

 panther had been quite so long coming after dark, 

 as she it was a female had no time to make a meal 

 in the morning after killing the goat, so she ought 

 to have been hungry. When the skinning was over 

 I told them to cut open the stomach and see if there 

 was anything in that. It was crammed with large 

 pieces of undigested monkey : there was a forearm 

 whole with its little black-palmed hand and nails 

 intact, hairs on the back of the hand and arm all 

 fresh and clean as a live monkey. There were large 

 mouthfuls of legs, back, ribs, meat and bone, all 

 clean; and however the panther could expect to 

 crowd a good-sized goat on the top of all this monkey 

 I don't know. It was a wonder she came back at all. 

 The monkey was certainly not a big one, but I 

 should much have liked to know how the tragedy 

 occurred : did the monkey try to struggle away ; 

 had it time to make all those long-drawn cries before 

 it was killed, a panther always being so quick over 

 this work; or did the poor mother sit watching 

 and wailing, all powerless to help ? The bones could 

 tell us nothing I 



Bumps had been very stiff and lame after our wet 

 camp, and one morning when we drove out to shoot 

 quail I shut him in the high-sided bullock cart, to 

 prevent him coming with us and using his bad leg. 

 The sound of the guns was too much for him, he 

 tried to jump out, and the next thing was that he 

 lay on the hard road howling with pain : he had 

 broken a bone near the elbow. I was preparing to 

 take him in, a long journey, to see a veterinary 



