126 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



seized one of my Clumber spaniels at the door of my tent ; 

 but a big greyhound named " Jack " flew to the rescue, and 

 little " Nell " escaped with a few scratches and a great fright. 

 The same panther became afterwards very troublesome on the 

 hill when the workmen at the bungalow had left, attacking 

 my dogs, sheep, and goats nearly every night, and coming 

 boldly through the very rooms of the house. He was a 

 toothless old brute however, to which circumstance the dogs 

 owed several escapes out of his very jaws ; and though so 

 daring at night in attacking our animals he would never face 

 the men. Several times my horsekeepers and dog-boys sent 

 him skulking off sideways, like a crab, from the vigour 

 of their applications of long bamboos across his back. I 

 never could kill him, though I tried ever} 7- conceivable plan. 

 One night 1 might have shot him as he passed along below 

 the raised plinth of the house in the moonlight ; but of 

 course I had seized the only unloaded gun in the rack in the 

 hurry, and the locks snapped harmlessly within a foot of his 

 back. He was shot by a shikari after I had left the hill. 



Coursing foxes was another great amusement. A colony 

 of the pretty little fox of the plains * inhabited a small 

 open glade a little to the west of my camp. They had 

 a great many burrows almost in the centre of the plain, all 

 of which appeared to run into each other. I never failed 

 to unearth one or more foxes here by the aid of " Pincher," 

 a minute black and tan English terrier, with the spirit of a 

 lion, who could get into any of the holes, and would die 

 rather than not get out his fox. Often he showed signs of 

 severe subterranean combats ; and once I thought he was done 

 for, when the greyhounds ran a fox into the very hole he had 

 gone in at. We had to get picks and spades and dig down 



* Valpes Bengalemi&. 



