With Flashlight and Rifle -^ 



themselves in this direction ! On occasions, certainly, 

 leopards attack men in a very desperate manner. 



A very remarkable case was related to me by Herr 

 von Gordon, who. in the company of his brother and the 

 late Herr von Tippelskirch, met with the following ex- 

 perience in German East Africa. They were sitting 

 smoking by the camp-fire, when suddenly a little fox- 

 terrier running about near them gave out a feeble yap 

 and disappeared ! Like a flash a leopard had seized it 

 from its master's feet. A general hue-and-cry led to 

 nothing. The dog was lost. The astonishing part of 

 the story, however, is that next evening the very same 

 leopard stole a negress from the camp, but let her fall 

 about eighty paces away. The previous experience had 

 made every one more ready with their arms, and a quick 

 fire had frif^htened the animal so that he had let fall 

 his unfortunate prey — but dead from a bite on the throat. 



The chief food of leopards consists usually of apes 

 and small antelopes and gazelles. In mountain woods 

 they prey upon badgers, in rocky districts upon rock- 

 badgers. The night-cries of the impallas and bush- 

 bucks, and especially the weird shrieks of the baboons, 

 herding in high trees, are caused, to my thinking, by the 

 sudden attacks of leopards. At night time attacks on 

 the sleeping apes are more practicable, tor a full-grown 

 male baboon when awake is no despicable foe. The 

 teeth of such an ape are longer than those of the 

 leopard. 



1 he character of the leopard is a remarkable contrast 

 to that of the Hon. He is notable for his savageness, even 



404 



