PANTHERS. 61 



yards, fired, and missed him clean. I found the mark of 

 the bullet on a rock behind where the panther had been 

 reclining, just a few inches too high. 



My next adventure with a basking panther was a few 

 months later on the Billiga Eungum Hills in Mysore ; but 

 on that occasion I got within thirty yards of him after an 

 easy stalk. Whatever may happen to the tiger, in view of 

 the increasing use of firearms by natives, and the greater 

 facilities of transport by railways, which have brought 

 hitherto secluded jungles to within a few hours of many 

 stations, no fears need be entertained that the panther will 

 be exterminated; they are crafty, and too well able to take 

 care of themselves, difficult to force from their fastnesses, 

 which abound all over the country; and their depredations, 

 being generally confined to goats, dogs, and such small 

 deer, do not bring them so much before the eye of the 

 public. Their favourite haunts in the Annamullays were 

 in the vicinity of the Ibex hills, but they, as well as tigers, 

 very soon found out the dead bodies of any bison that 

 might have been shot in the lower part of the forest, and, 

 by stalking up to these, a shot was not unfrequently 

 obtained, as they generally lay up close by, and when 

 started, would bound away for thirty or forty yards, and 

 stop to have a look at the intruder, thus giving a fail- 

 opportunity for a successful shot. In bygone years at 

 Secunderabad, one day during a big luncheon at our nu 

 news was brought by an orderly of the Contingent, that a 

 panther in the Bolarum Cantonments had killed and eaten 

 a cow, and had afterwards been marked down in some 

 adjacent rocks. All the leading sportsmen of the station 

 happened to be present, Colonel Nightingale of the 

 Contingent, and Captain Hazelrigg of my regiment being 

 regarded as representatives of the Indian and British armies 



