350 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



which panthers attacked human beings unprovoked. In the 

 first instance (p. 413) the ferocious animal was defeated and 

 driven off by an heroic boy of twelve armed with an empty 

 brandy-bottle. In the second case a blue-jacket who had 

 deserted from Esquimault and ' found his way through the 

 woods until he rested under the domain of the starry flag,' killed 

 the panther which attacked him there by a ' gladiatorial 

 thrust 'with a spade (p. 415). The third and fourth of Mr. 

 Perry's pugnacious panthers behaved somewhat differently 

 one followed a gentleman, the other followed a lady, and in 

 both cases showed the human beings somewhat marked 

 attentions, licking their hands, gazing ' intently ' into their eyes, 

 and tearing off most of their clothes, but nothing more. The 

 fifth panther was caned by a gentleman from Snohomish, and 

 the sixth was stared out of countenance and put to flight by 

 someone from Brownsville, whom the panther had knocked 

 off his horse ; but it was reserved for another hero from Snoho- 

 mish to perform the marvellous feat of catching a panther on 

 the wing (' as it was passing in the air ') with ' his left arm round 

 its body just behind the forelegs.' Of course, having got his 

 grip, the gentleman from Snohomish thumped the head of that 

 poor panther with his gun-barrels till it died. In this Homeric 

 struggle the victor lost nothing but the tail of his night-shirt. 



Now, no doubt all these stories are quite true, and they 

 undoubtedly prove great courage in someone, but not, it seems, 

 in the panther ; so that in spite of Mr. Perry I am obliged to 

 accept the general opinion upon this subject as the correct one, 

 backed as it is by a statement just made to me by Mr. John 

 Fannin, the curator of the British Columbian Museum an 

 accepted authority in the American press upon such matters, 

 and an ' old timer ' who has had many opportunities of observing 

 this beast that he had never come across a well-authenticated 

 story of a panther showing fight to (much less attacking) a man. 

 From Mr. Fannin I obtained the measurements of the largest 

 panthers out of the twenty-five or so which have been sent to 

 him in late years to be skinned. The longest of these was a 



