Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"Lord, suffer me to catch a fish
So big that even I,
In telling of it afterwards,
Shall have no need to lie.

So runs the Fisherman's Prayer. With two words substituted for "catch" and "fish" this could also be the prayer of all big game hunters. Many of them, of course, may be unaware of the wish in their hearts- till the have bagged something near record size.

I am no big game hunter; only a naturalist. The difference does not lie merely in my comprehensive lack of skill with gun and rifle. I am apt to find a smallish tiger quite as exciting as one that would be (when dead) a clear 10 feet between pegs and, worse still, a jackal equally interesting on occasion. The compensation for my lowly estate is that I am unlikely to magnify the proportions of an animal that I watch or of one, shot by someone else, that I measure or weigh. this personal and defensive preface is necessary because I am writing of the most versatile and varied of big game beasts, the leopard or panther (the terms are synonymous now, and the Indian and African leopard, identical specifically).

Which is the record specimen of the panther? This is a question that is simultaneously easy and almost impossible to answer, with certainty. If newspaper reports can be trusted, the Hyderabad monster puts all others of its kind, and almost all tigers to shame. According to a news agency report widely circulated in South India, Mr. MK Vellodi, then Chief Minister of Hyderabad, bagged a man-eating panther at Narsapur on 13 May 1951, that was 10.5 feet long.

However, if we are to limit ourselves to prosy facts, the question is hard to answer. In assessing the size certain difficulties arise with panthers that are less difficult with other creatures, including the tiger. For even where length between pegs and weight are both available (which is unusual), the length of the tail varies so much in panthers that unless it is also specified one can get no idea of the bulk of the specimen. Dunbar Brander, a most trustworthy authority, says the tail may vary in length from 28 to 38 inches, and since it is independent of body size, one can never say that even a 7.5 foot panther is a large specimen without knowing the length of the tail.

Again, weight is affected by the condition and whether or not the panther has killed and fed recently. A big panther weighs about 150 pounds, and some 25 pounds of this weight may depend on whether it is gorged or unfed- in a tiger there would not be the same proportionate difference on this account.

After stressing the variations in size and coat that can obtain in panthers, Brander says, "Purely jungle leopards, those living entirely inside the forest and never resorting to open country and villages, are often of larger size and adopts the habits and ways, and to some extent the colourisation, of tigers. They have yellow tawny coats, relatively fewer spots and rosettes, and are distinguished by jungle tribes as 'gol baghs' or 'spot tigers'. An average specimen of this type "measured 7 ft 5 in and weighed 152 lb".

This distinction between the larger and heavier forest-loving game killer and the panther haunting the purlieus of villages has been reiterated by most subsequent writers. A recent note in a scientific journal refers to this difference and mentions a panther " 8 ft 5.5 inch in length" (between pegs?). Rowland Ward, I think, records longer animals and one that weighed 160 lbs. I remember reading somewhere of a nine-foot panther- but probably this measurement was very much round the curves.

I have measured the length, between pegs, of certain large panthers shot in the Deccan during the past 10 years, and where there were facilities for accurate weighment I have weighed them. Here are the details from my notes.

Two males shot within 15 minutes of each other on the evening of 14 September 1947, from the main bus road near Chilkanahatti measured 7 ft 1.5 in (tail 32 inch) and 7 ft 5 inch (tail 36 inch) and weighed 132 lbs and 121 lbs after 24 hours- neither was gorged. The first of these was a very powerfully built old beast, with a big domed head, a close dark coat and no white and all on the face or throat, even the chin and jaws and inside of the ears being yellow ochre. He crossed the road in the light of the setting sun right in front of two experienced shikaris, a few minutes before he was shot, and both identified him as a tiger!

I should mention two remarkable animals from Sandur hill jungles. Both were chance-met males, shot from the road very near human settlements. The first, shot about sunset on 13 June 1948, was 7 ft 7 in between pegs and was a low, longish panther, obviously old and with the right lower canine broken. It had the most remarkable coat I have ever seen on a panther, with the hair soft and somewhat fuzzy- the ground colour was no shade of yellow or brown, and in most panthers, but a light warm grey, and there was no line of solid spots down the spine, the markings consisting mainly of large rosettes, some of them double rosettes with an inner cluster of fine spots within the outer circle. The illustration* is from a rough sketch of the beast.

The second panther is probably a record, for South India at any rate. It was shot on the night of 25 July 1951, by the Yuvaraja of Sandur, and had a tucked in empty stomach. Length- 7 ft 8 inch between pegs (lowest of the three measurements), tail (root to tip) 35 inches; shoulder to toes of forelegs, 33 inches; girth behind forelegs, 36 inches; weight 158 lbs. The colouration was normal.

The interesting thing about these four panthers (and other large animals from the same areas) is that none of them was a pure game killer, a forest-loving "gol bagh". All four were shot very near villages, from the main road, and three were definitely known to prey, occasionally, on village cattle and dogs. In Karwar, where there is real forest (there is only bush jungle in Chilkanahatti) the few panthers I have seen were small and long-tailed- two males I measured were 6.5 feet, and very light, with beautiful, dark coats.

Whatever may be the general rule in Central Provinces, the "gol bagh" distinction does not appear to hold in the Deccan, and it is unsafe to specify any colouring as being typical of panthers of any region. Heredity seems to play a much larger part than environment in determining the size and colour of the panthers of any area. Sufficient food during the period of growth (and even afterwards) is a vital factor of course."
- M.Krishnan

This was first published on 22 November 1953 in The Sunday Statesman


*The sketch of the leopard not reproduced here.