all were the stories artlessly told by a couple of children, one of
whom witnessed the death of a sister, and the other of a brother,
both carried off in broad daylight, for the fell destroyer went
boldly to work, knowing that they were but weak opponents."[13] I
was out several times after this diabolical creature, but without
success; as I sat out night after night I could hear the villagers
calling from house to house hourly, "_Jagte ho bhiya! jagte ho!_"
"Are you awake, brothers? are you awake!" All day long I scoured the
country with my elephant, all night long I watched and waited. My
camp was guarded by great fires, my servants and followers were made
to sleep inside tents, whilst sentries with musket and bayonet were
placed at the doors; but all to no purpose. The heated imagination
of one sentry saw him glowering at him across the blazing fire. A
frantic camp-follower spoilt my breakfast next morning ere I had
taken a second mouthful, by declaring he saw him in an adjoining field.
Then would come in a tale of a victim five miles off during the night,
and then another, and sometimes a third. I have alluded before to
his cowardice; in many cases a single man or boy would frighten him
from his prey. On one occasion, in my rounds after him, I came upon
a poor woman bitterly crying in a field; beside her lay the dead body
of her husband. He had been seized by the throat and dragged across
the fire made at the entrance of their little wigwam in which they
had spent the night, watching their crops. The woman caught hold of
her husband's legs, and, exerting her strength against the
man-eater's, shrieked aloud. He dropped the body and fled, making
no attempt to molest her or her little child of about four years of
age. This man was the third he had attacked that night.

[Footnote 13: 'Seonee.']

He was at last killed, by accident, by a native shikari who, in the
dusk, took him for a pig or some such animal, and made a lucky shot;
but the tale of his victims had swelled over two hundred during the
three years of his reign of terror.

NO. 203. FELIS PANTHERA.
_The Panther_.

NATIVE NAMES.--_Chita_, _Gorbacha_, Hindi; _Beebeea-bagh_,
Mahrathi; _Bibla_, of the Chita-catchers; _Ghur-hay_ or _Dheer-hay_
of the hill tribes; _Kerkal_, Canarese.

HABITAT.--India generally, Burmah and Ceylon, extending also into
the Malayan countries.

[Illustration: _FELIS PANTHERA_ (_From a fine specimen in the
Regent's Park Gardens_