140 THE LEOPARD. 



game. The African sportsman is either providing himself and his servants with venison, or is 

 enabled to feed whole families of hungry Kaffirs, who have fasted from meat for many days. 



To shoot or capture a Leopard is therefore useful as well as gratifying, and we shall be 

 sure when we catch one of these beasts to have the opportunity of punishing either an old 

 offender or one that is likely to become so. 



When the Leopard has committed many deeds of rapine in one locality, he often appears 

 to think it better to decamp and try some far-removed scene of operations. 



THE habits of the Indian Leopard are almost identical with those of its African relative. 

 Equally cautious when caution is necessary, and equally bold when audacity is needed, the 

 animal achieves exploits of a similar nature to those which have been narrated of the African 

 Leopard. The following anecdote is a sample of the mixed cunning and insolence of this 

 creature. 



An ox had been killed, and the joints were hung tip in a hut, which was close to a spot 

 where a sentry was posted. In the evening the sentry gave an alarm that some large animal 



BLACK LEOPARD. 



had entered the hut. A light was procured and a number of people searched the several 

 rooms of which the hut was composed, without discovering the cause of the alarm. They 

 were just about to retire, when one of the party caught sight of a Leopard, which was clinging 

 to the thatched roof immediately above the hooks on which the meat was suspended. No 

 sooner did the animal discover that its presence was known, than it dropped to the floor, laid 

 about it vigorously with its claws, and leaping through the doorway, made its escape, leaving 

 several souvenirs of its visit in various scratches, one of which was inflicted on the sentry who 

 gave the alarm, and kept him to his bed for several weeks. 



The consternation caused by such an attack was very great, and many who escaped the 

 Leopard's claws, suffered severely from bruises which they received in the general rush 

 towards the door. 



The usual color of the Leopard's fur is a golden-yellow ground, which is thickly studded 

 with dark rosette-shaped spots. The form of the rosettes and the color of the fur are by 

 no means uniform. 



There are some Leopards whose fur is so very dark as to earn for them the name of Black 

 Leopard. This is probably only a variety, and not a distinct species. Although at first sight 

 this Leopard appears to be almost uniformly black, yet on a closer inspection it is seen to be 

 furnished with the usual pardine spots, which in certain lights are very evident. There have 

 been often exhibited sundry Leopards of an exceedingly dark fur, and yet partaking largely 



