AN AFRICAN CIVET ATTACKING HUMAN BEINGS, 



191 



1 Otter (Lutra Intra), from Hampton Court, presented by 

 H. Tagg on January 18th. 



2 Straw-necked Ibises (Carphibis spinicollis), from Australia ; 

 1 Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber), from Para ; 1 Himalayan 

 Monaul (Lophophoras impeyanus) S , from Himalayas ; 1 Peacock 

 Pheasant (Polyplectrum chinquis) S , from Burmah ; 2 Swinhoe's 

 Pheasants {Gennceus swinhoii) $ 2 > from Formosa, presented by 

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



Dr. Smith 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 Pena, San Roman de Candamo, 

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

 Pacheco in no. 17 of the memoirs of the Spanish commission on 

 prehistoric investigations. 



An African Civet attacking Human 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 punctured 

 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." 



