BITTEN TO DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 103, 5 May 1926, Page 6

BITTEN TO DEATH.

FERRET ATTACKS MAN. PENSIONER'S DEATH. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 30. Found with the lobe of one ear chewed off, and a large piece of flesh eaten out of the side of his scalp by a ferret while he was asleep, William Hugging an old age pensioner, was so badly injured that he died in hospital at Manilla New South Wales, this week. ' Huggins was employed by the local council as caretaker of the recreation ground. He had 'been in bad health, and the local police had fallen into the habit of visiting his hut at regular intervals to see. how the old man was faring. Constable Hill, of Manville, visited the hut one morning, and, hearing groans from inside, pushed open the door and found Huggins in a terrible state of exhaustion. He was lying on the floor of the hut, in a pool of blood, clasping the ferret in both hands. "He attacked mc," he told the constable, and then collapsed. Apparently Huggins had been attacked in his sleep, had fought with the animal, and fallen from his 'bunk to the , floor, his subsequent death being partly due to the force of the fall, but mainly to the terrible injuries inflicted by the bloodthirsty animal. Huggins had complained the day before the attack that his sleep was disturbed by a large rat, which his cat did not seem able to catch. It has since been ascertained that a resident who went rabbit hunting a week before, lost his ferret, which went into fc rabbit burrow and stayed there. '•■ , -