550 ^OVRITAL, BOMBAY NATURAL EISTOHY SOCIETY, 1.^92. 



No. IX.-MEA.SUREMENTS OF BLA.CK-BUCK HORNS. 



On page 392 of tlie Journal of tlie Society, No. 3, Vol. VII., it is entered tliat 

 Mr. Blanford mentions a pair of Black-buck horns 28 r inches long, &c. 



I shot that buck a,t a place called Jaisingpura, about seven miles south of 

 Jeypore, in Rajputana. 



At the request of Mr. A. 0. Hume, I sent the horns for him to see, when he 

 happened to be staying at the Jeypore Residency, and he verified the measure- 

 ments in the presence of some other visitors, one of whom I rather think was 

 Mr. Blanford. 



The horns were 28f inches long, but in a subsequent correspondence about 

 them, Mr. Hume asserted most positively that they were 29| inches, and that they 

 are so recorded in his notes. 



I think Mr. Hume must have made an illegible 8, which he afterwards read as 9; 

 his writing never was very clear; but Mr. Blanford probably also took a note of 

 their length, and he has it correctly. 



Horns of 24 inches are common in Rajputana and about Sirsa in the Punjab, 

 and horns of 26 inches are not infrequently met with, but anything over 26 inches 

 is rare. 



A pair of 27-| inches are in the Sappers' Mess at Roorkee, shot by General 

 Blood of Agra at Jeypore. 



B. W. BLOOD. 

 Ajmere, 7th February, 1893. 



No. X.— A BOLD PANTHER. 



I send you the following account of anight in a mackan, as I think the extreme 

 boldness displayed by the panther concerned was somewhat remarkable : — 



On the morning of the 4th instant having received kkubber that a panther had 

 killed a 3-year-old cow within a mile of my bungalow, I had a machan got ready 

 and went out at dusk to sit over the kill. It was about 6-30 when I got comfort- 

 ably settled, and as the moon was not to rise till 10 or | past, I had 3 hours of 

 darkness to get through, but as the kill was only 70 or 80 yards from a row of 

 native houses, I hoped that the panther would wait until all was quiet. As the 

 kill was a larger one than the panthers about here usually prey upon, I did not 

 think there was any likelihood of its being dragged away, and consequently did not 

 tie it up. I had not been in the machan more than ^ of an hour, when the panther 

 came ; it was too dark to distinguish him, but I could tell by the noise he made that 

 he was dragging the kill away. There was heavy jungle quite close, and thinking 

 that my only chance was to fluke a shot, I aimed at something black which I could 

 distinguish about the right place, and fired. There was no answer to the shot, and all 

 was quiet, and I knew that I had missed him altogether. Meanwhile the occupants 

 of the neighbouring houses came running out with torches, so I got down to see what 



