AN AFRICAX CTVET ATTACKING HUMAN BEINGS. 191 



1 Otter (^fjutra Intra), from Hampton Court, presenterl by 

 H. Tagg on January 18th. 



2 8traw-neckecl Ibises (Carphibis spinicollis), from Australia ; 

 1 Scarlet Iliis {Eudocimus ruber), from Para ; 1 Himalayan 

 Monaul {Lophophoras iinpejjanics) J , from Himalayas ; 1 Peacock 

 Pheasant [Poh/plectrum chinqids) S , from Burma.h ; 2 Swiuhoe's 

 Pheasants {Gennceus sioinhoii) (S $ , from Formosa, presented by 

 Major The Hon. Waldorf Astor, F.Z.S. 



Dr. SairiH Woodward, F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., exhibited a copy of 

 an incised drawing of a hunted deer, pierced by arrows, made by 

 Palaeolithic man in the cave of La Peiia, San Roman de Oandamo, 

 Asturias, Spain. It was lately published by Dr. Hernandez- 

 Pacheco in no. 17 of .the memoii's of the Spanish commission on 

 prehistoric investigations. 



An African Civet attacking tluman Beings. 



The following letter, communicated by Professor Poulton, 

 F.R.S., F.Z.S., was read from Captain G. D. Hale Carpenter, 

 M.D., giving an account of a case which had come under his 

 personal observation in which an African Civet attacked human 

 beings. 



"On the night of Dec. 10-1 1th, 1917, an Indian and an 

 African, employees of the railway, were sleeping in the verandah 

 of the station building when the latter was awakened by a bite 

 on his toe, and' found to his alarm what he thought was a young 

 leopard — -it was a very dark night and without a moon. It 

 viciously attacked the two men, but they managed to catch it 

 and throw it down a well, as they had no stick or other weapons 

 handy.: they both came to hospital in the morning to have their 

 wounds dressed — the African had a contused and punctui-ed 

 wound on the ball of the great toe : the forearm of the Indian 

 was superficially lacerated. When they brought up the body of 

 the culprit, which I had decided in my mind would prove to be a 

 Serval cat, as I thought it unlikely the two men would without 

 weapons have overpowered a Leopard cub. But to my astonish- 

 ment the draggled carcase was that of a rather small, old. Civet ! 



" The men said there had been two of them. 



" I should think undoubted instances of unprovoked assault by 

 a Civet on mankind must be rare. 



" G. D. Hale Carpenter, M.D., 



Capt, Uganda Med. Service." 



" On the Central Railway of ex-German East Africa, 

 17 miles W. of Tabora, 

 December 12, 1917." 



