CH. IX] POllCl PINES 215 



somewhat when he pulled. A bear thus caught would 

 have chewed up the trap or else pulled his foot loose, 

 even at the cost of sacrificing the toe ; but the cats are 

 more sensitive to pain. This leopard was smaller than 

 any full-grown male cougar I have ever killed, and yet 

 cougars often kill game rather heavier than leopards 

 usually venture upon ; yet very few cougars indeed 

 would show anything like the pluck and ferocity shown 

 by this leopard, and characteristic of its kind. 



Kermit killed a waterbuck of a kind new to us — the 

 sing-sing. He also killed two porcupines and two 

 baboons. The porcupines are terrestrial animals, living 

 in burrows, to which they keep during the daytime. 

 They are much heavier than, and in all their ways 

 totally different from, our sluggish tree porcupines. 

 The baboons were numerous around this camp, living 

 both among the rocks and in the tree-tops. They are 

 hideous creatures. They ravage the crops and tear 

 open new-born lambs to get at the milk inside them ; 

 and where the natives are timid and unable to harm 

 them, they become wantonly savage and aggressive, 

 and attack and even kill w^omen and children. In 

 Uganda, Ciminghame had once been asked by a native 

 chief to come to his village and shoot the baboons, as 

 they had just killed two w'omen, badly bitten several 

 children, and caused such a reign of terror that the 

 village would be abandoned if they were not killed 

 or intimidated. He himself saw the torn and mutilated 

 bodies of the dead women ; and he stayed in the village 

 a week, shooting so many baboons that the remainder 

 were tlioroughly cowed. Baboons and boars are the 

 most formidable of all foes to the dogs that hunt them 

 — just as leopards are of all wild animals those most apt 

 to prey on dogs. A baboon's teeth and hands are far 



