538 JOURNA L, BOMB A ¥ NA TLRA L HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XI. 



a census of the able-bodied tigers in India in one year and compare it 

 with the list ol man-eaters, I think we should find that the percentage of 

 crime was most credi ably small. And I doubt whether any tiger ever 

 took to killing man from malice alone, without circumstances having some- 

 thing to do with it. Some few of those go about with a light heart and 

 a smiling countenance (I can vouch for one smile myself, for I saw it — 

 all and it was very comprehensi\ e -) but most, I ttiink, go about like 

 convicted criminals, feeling the brand of Cain upon them and more than 

 ever shunning the face of man — alive or dead. The old tigress mentioned after- 

 wards, although she had killed so many people was always careful to jump 

 on them when they were not loo Kinji, and, as she was stall ing a boy asleep 

 one afternoon, when he awoke and saw her, she turned and sneaked away like 

 a detected pickpocket. 



A panther on the other hand has no sentimental scruples. He certainly 

 can fight, but I thinU his pluck is more of the nature of the brutal ferocity 

 of the pig, than the cool courage of the buffalo. (I refer to the tame 

 buffalo : the behaviour of the wild one is a subject T do not feel competent 

 to classify : my impression is that he is rather a beast — but that is another 

 story.) I thin , it is very much a question of size and strength whether a 

 panther takes to killing human b< ings or not : and if he once begins he 

 shows sometimes unlimited impudence, and doe3 not merely kill to eat, but 

 kills for the pleasure of killing. He will lurk about villages and houses 

 in a way no tiger ever does. As Kir Samuel Baker says: " A tiger has more of 

 the dog than the ca" in his disposition : the panther is a real cat." So much 

 for the natural iger. —The man-eater is an animal that has brol< en his caste 

 and become a pariah - to be destroyed like a snake — if you can catch him, but 

 there's the rub. The first man eater I met with in the Central Provinces was a 

 panther. Kills had occurred over a space of abo> t five miles square, and were 

 attributed 10 a tiger, until after some weeks of random beating, an animal 

 began to kill a series of tied-up buffaloes in the same place, and was stalked 

 and shot over the last kill at daybreak one morning, dissected, and from 

 internal evidence proved to be the local man-3ater. This was a pmther, male, 

 6 feet 7£ inches, in length, but very heavy and powerful and amazingly fat. 



The evidence in his case was two metal rings found in his stomach, which 

 were practically identified by the villagers as having belon ed respectively 

 to two old people I illed about three weeks . nd five weeks before. He had a 

 good coat, teeth and claws perfect. [As to the popular theory < f man-eaters 

 being mangy and toothless, I regard it as a sort of pre-historic myth absolutely 

 without foundation. I have examined four myself (two tigers and two 

 leopards) and found they all had good coats (<-ne particularly fine) and 

 perfect teeth, and only one showed any trac s of injury or defect in his 

 claws.] This panther, »s far as I could gathbr, kept to the same stretch of 

 ground— three or four villages and the ground adjoining — but where he lay 



