PANTHERS. 45 



enlarged, turned round and charged the wrong way 

 into a crowd of spectators ; the confusion was immense, 

 but the brute was pluckily tackled by some terriers, and 

 was finally speared. A few months later, an officer of the 

 18th Hussars was badly mauled, and these performances 

 were stopped.* Panthers are usually shot by bolting 

 them, as already described, with fireworks, from their 

 strongholds in the rocks, and are often ousted in this way 

 when beating for tigers or bears. They are fond of 

 basking on rocks near their caves in the morning and 

 evening sun, and may then be stalked without much 

 difficulty. A pair of tennis shoes will be found most 

 useful for this work ; the indiarubber soles make no noise 

 and afford good foothold on slanting rocks ; the scraping 

 of nailed boots against the stones, &c., soon alarms the 

 janwar. More panthers and cheetahs are, however, shot 

 over a kill than in any other way, as they are almost 

 certain to return about dusk if much of the animal remains 

 uneaten ; they are far more suspicious than tigers under 

 these circumstances, and before approaching they will 

 often lie down some distance off for several minutes, 

 keeping a sharp look out all round ; the sportsman must 

 therefore be correspondingly cautious. 



Another device is to tie up a kid near their haunts, 

 forming an ambuscade close by ; the cries of the kid 

 are sustained by tying a string to its ear and pulling 

 it occasionally ; the panther will often charge out and 

 spring on it immediately the coast is clear. 



On killing an animal, the first thing a tiger or panther 

 does after drinking the blood is to drag the body to some 

 shady spot close by before devouring it, but it often 



* They have since been renewed, but are often accompanied 

 by dangerous and even fatal accidents. 



