THE HUNTING LEOPARD 69 



couple of greyhounds newly unleashed. Young- 

 ones have occasionally been picked up out of long- 

 grass ; to find such mites is of course like searching 

 for the proverbial needle in a bundle of hay. The 

 cheetah differs from the true leopard in avoiding 

 dense forests, preferring open grass land or desert, 

 dotted over with small bushes which afford cover 

 when stalking game. It lies up in the daytime in 

 caves in rocky hills, stealing out at dusk as the 

 gazelle and pallah begin to feed, A combination of 

 rocky kopje and bare rolling veldt well suits the 

 hunting pard ; those which inhabit the Sahara 

 perhaps benefit directly by their spotted coats, since 

 the black dots on a fawn ground may well render 

 them inconspicuous by simulating pebbles strewn 

 over sandy desert. 



Cheetah are remarkable in hunting in couples or 

 small parties (quite the reverse of the usual practice 

 amongst cats); a single individual has, however, been 

 seen pursuing a herd of oryx on his own account. 



The young are trained to the chase by their 

 parents. The quarry being gradually approached by 

 stalking is then run into by a final rush of light- 

 ning rapidity. It is killed by compression of the 

 throat (thus dying from asphyxial occlusion of 

 the windpipe) not by breaking the neck, as 

 sometimes represented by illustrators of works of 

 natural history. The victim feels the leopard's fangs 



