Sitting up over a bait at night is the poorest of all amusements. Often has the writer undergone it, and as often sworn he never would do it again, till the next absolute certainty has been offered him with the usual disappointing result.
When a panther is in the habit of attacking flocks on their way home in the evening, a good plan is to select a place before the flock returns, and arrange with the shepherd that he shall drive the flock past your hiding-place and tether a kid as he passes; the apparent absence of pre-arrangement will probably induce the panther to show at once.
Sanderson gives some stirring accounts of his adventures with panthers in which the following points are particularly noticeable, viz. the necessity of posting markers outside the cover beaten to watch the panther if he leaves it; that panthers will not charge out of caves even if poked up with bamboos; that, unlike most tigers, a panther charged home at a large party of men closed up, and used his paws, cuffing right and left instead of biting. Not that a panther never bites, as the beast referred to had bitten a man previously, but in nearly all cases of men being mauled the bulk of their injuries are claw wounds.
Sterndale relates a curious legend about a well-known man-eating panther that killed over two hundred people in three years, and was supposed to be a kind of Wehr-wolf. Panthers have often been ridden down and speared, but two or three men are required for this amusement, as on the first horse overtaking it the panther will at once crouch and endeavour to spring on the horse’s back as he passes. The second horseman should, therefore, be close up ready to cut in at once; care should be taken to get the first spear home in a good place, and the panther should be held down if possible, till despatched by the spears of the rest of the party. It is foolhardiness for a single man to attempt it. Panthers climb readily, and many have been shot out of trees where they have taken refuge, or been found lying asleep on a branch. Forsyth considers that many panthers escape in drives by taking to trees, and mentions finding the body of a child, that had been killed by a panther, lodged in a forked bough.