CUMBRIAN drivers have grown used to slamming on the brakes for stray sheep or deer but not normally for black panthers.

Yet retired farmer Dixon Robinson and his partner Yvonne Atkinson swears this was indeed what they had to do when "a big black cat" appeared on the road in front of them near Ulverston.

"It was about 11 in the morning, in broad daylight on the lane near Bouth, just up from Rusland Pool," reported Mrs Atkinson. "I just saw it come out in front of the car and it looked and then kind of leapt. it put its paw forward and jumped over the dyke and looked back at Dixon. Then all of a sudden it shot away through the undergrowth."

Mr Robinson, 73, a farmer for many years at Hodgson's Green Farm in Silecroft, was adamant that what he saw in last Tuesday's encounter was a big wild cat.

"You could tell as soon as you saw it, it was a big cat. It had a big long tail, starry eyes and little black lugs. It was nearly as big as a goat. I'm a farmer and I know my animals. It was no dog, it was something different. You could tell it was a wild animal. It was frightening."

Mrs Atkinson is also sure that her eyes were not deceiving her.

"I have never seen anything jump like that thing, its eyes and its ears were pricked-up. I have only ever seen these on TV. I swear by it, I put my life on it, that was no dog.

"I usually have my camera in my bag but I didn't that day, I don't know why."

In the last four years, The Westmorland Gazette has reported more than 30 similar sightings of elusive black cats across South Lakeland, Furness and north Lancashire, with particular hot spots just south of Kendal and along the M6 between Shap and Kendal.

Most recently, quarryman Mike Hodgson took what he believed to be pictures of a big black cat at Baycliff in April. Experts agreed that his shots might indeed show a black leopard (also known as panthers) but because the cat was at such a distance, they could not offer conclusive proof.

The best evidence to back-up the many sightings so far came from Gatebeck, near Endmoor, in October 2000 when a dentist took plaster casts of two massive paw prints found in her garden.