96 JO URNAL, BOMB A Y NA TURA L HIBTOR Y SOCIETY, Vol. IX. 



camp some 3 or 4 miles away, when I thought I would like to have a look at the 

 quality of the coppice growth in a piece of forest that had come under the axe 

 six years before, and which adjoined the forest I had just been inspecting.' 

 Thinking I might turn a partridge out of the sort of stuff I was going to prowl 

 through, I took my gun from the forest-guard who had been carrying it 

 hitherto, and loaded it with No. 8 shot cartridge in each barrel. Presently I 

 got to the top of a ridge where walking was a bit difficult, and having a guard 

 and two villagers following me in single file, I thought it wise to put the gun at 

 half cock. I went a couple of hundred yards along the ridge and then com- 

 menced to descend again through a thicket of coppice, dense enough to make 

 progress slow and laborious. I placed my gun in the hollow of the left arm, 

 gripping the stock from beneath and sloping the barrels outwards, whilst, with 

 my right hand, I cleared a way as I went down the slope. I had got about 

 half way down, and had just reached a small level bit of open grass-land, 

 when, as I emerged from the thicket, I saw a panther charging straight for 

 me. I had only time to seize the gun in my right hand and to get the thumb 

 on one hammer in an endeavour to cock it, when the beast was at my feet. 

 Visions of a hospital flashed across my mind and I did the only thing I could 

 think of at the moment, which was to hit the panther over the back with the 

 gun. From the way I was holding the gun it will be understood that the blow 

 I was able to give was not a hard one. It was, however, sufficient to turn the 

 panther. He slewed to my left, brushing my leg the whole length from two 

 inches above the knee to the ancle with his body, and sprang on to some rocks 

 about five yards to the left, where he appeared to halt for a fraction of a 

 second before springing down and bounding out of sight. As he sprang away 

 from me I finished the cocking of the right barrel and brought up the gun 

 to my shoulder, but the thought occurred to me that a charge of No. 8 shot 

 in the stern at five yards could not be immediately, if at all, fatal, and might 

 bring the panther round upon us, and whilst I debated about firing, he dis- 

 appeared. The men who were with me had seen nothing of the panther till 

 he slewed away from me, they being close behind me. But their faces were a 

 study when they did see the brute and their ejaculations interesting. I was 

 both figuratively and metaphorically glad to see the "end of that panther. He 

 was a sleek, handsome brute, hardly full grown, but near it. About 100 yards 

 further away from where I met him I found the flattened space where he 

 had been lying in the grass. Why he should have charged me deliberately in 

 the way he did (his ears were flat to his head and he came at full speed but 

 ventre a terre) and then have made no effort to scratch or bite me is best known 

 to himself. My theory is that he mistook me, coming quietly through the 

 dense thicket, for a bekri ; my shikar clothes and putties may have aided the 

 deception. He started to charge and win an easy prey and was as flabber- 

 gasted as myself when he saw the mistake he had made. I gave him a day to 

 recover his composure and then beat for him in that and the surrounding 



