THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



bounded out from his hiding place, only to receive shot No. 

 2 in his right shoulder. The shock of the bullet stopped 

 him for a moment, and, turning in our direction, he 

 snarled fearfully, with half-open mouth. Taking advan- 

 tage of this opportunity, I advanced to within fifteen yards 

 of the furious cheetah. Here I succeeded in getting two 

 good photographs of him. Just as I had snapped him the 

 second time, he decided that he had had enough of " pos- 

 ing," and made a leap toward us, certainly intending to 

 charge, when the third bullet, plowing through the heart, 

 finished him in an instant. In the stomach of this cheetah 

 we found evidence enough that its last meal had consisted 

 of a little " tommy," seeing pieces of the peculiarly marked 

 black and white skin, which showed that the meat must 

 have been either that of a Thomson's or possibly a Grant's 

 gazelle. 



The habits of the cheetah do not vary much from those 

 of the other leopards, but he is not often found on such 

 high altitudes as the latter, and seems to prefer the open 

 country and bare plains. The ordinary leopard likes the 

 densest bush country the best. In such places one will 

 hardly ever meet a cheetah. Although the latter is con- 

 siderably taller than the ordinary leopard, he does not 

 weigh so much, being much less solid than his cousin. The 

 length of the cheetah is also greater than that of the 

 spotted leopard, particularly if the measurement includes 

 that of the tail, which is in proportion longer than the tail 

 of the leopard. My first cheetah measured seven feet four 

 and a half inches from the tip of the nose to the end of 

 the tail before it was skinned; the second one, measured 

 in the same way, was seven feet seven inches long. Much 



128 



