532 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NA TUBAL HISTOR Y SOCIETY, Vol. M. 



No. III. ^WOUNDED ANIMALS CARRlINa THEIE BROKEN 

 LIMBS IN THEIR JAWS. 



One mornhig, in the cold weather of 1893,1 was returning from an unsuc- 

 cessful beat fox bear in some low hills lying at the extreme northerly end of 

 the Abu Range, when, seeing some chinkara, one of whom carried a good 

 head, I stepped off the path and fired but without success. Having, however, 

 another cartridge in my rifle and as they made down a gap between two 

 small rocky hills, I followed, hoping to cut them off by going round the 

 nearest. This I succeeded in doing and was on the point of firing again 

 when a panther jumped down off a boulder above me on the hill-side and 

 running forward for some thirty paces crouched down watching the 

 " Jamjelle" with twitching tail and ears. He, evidently, was not aware of my 

 presence, so stepping slightly to one side to obtain a more broad-side shot, I 

 fired and he rolled over. 



Having no more cartridges, I bobbed behind a rock and watched the panther^ 

 who presently picked himself up and limped off round some rocks 

 immediately in front. Following carefully, I again caught sight of him, 

 sitting up licking his evidently broken left forearm. At this moment, a native 

 called out to his goats which, in the meantime, had rounded the foot of the 

 furthest hill, upon which the panther looked up, listened for a moment, and 

 then picking up his broken leg by the paw in his mouth made across the open 

 to the foot of the hill from which he had first jumped ; and still holding the 

 smashed limb between his teeth, sprang up on to the slab of rock (which here 

 sloped down to the plain on the right of the boulder before mentioned) and 

 disappeared in the more broken formation higher up. Sending the goat-herd 

 after my men, we proceeded on their arrival to track the panther, and had 

 not gone very far along the hill-side when we came upon his cave into which 

 he had evidently retired, as the marks of blood about the narrow entrance 

 were quite fresh. HeuD we also found the fresh skin of a goat, quantities of 

 bones and small heaps of dung deposited on the top and sides of the rock 

 forming the roof of the cave. We then tried hard to get him out, cutting up 

 cartridges to make squibs which we dropped down the cracks in the sides 

 of the cave, and firing off blank cartridges, but all to no purpose, as we could 

 not get him to show, and had at last to give it up leaving a man to watch the 

 ■entrance of the cave. Being obliged to catch a train at the wa-y-side station 

 for my head-quarters, I left that day and was not able to return to this part 

 of the country for some two months, when I learned that the man told off 

 to watch the cave had left as no one came to relieve him, without having seen 

 anything ; and on paying a visit myself to the cave I found it evidently 

 abandoned (no fresh dung or bones being visible). Although I have since 

 paid this same cave periodical visits, I have found no signs of its being 

 inhabited and so have with my shikari come to the conclusion that the 



