LEOPARD 425 



when the average number killed did not exceed three or four a year. 

 In those days Hons were found in the wooded belt of hills between the 

 Ouarsenis on the west, the Pic de Taza on the east, the Djebel 

 Ennedate on the south, and the plain of the Chelif on the north ; but 

 it was estimated that of these only two-thirds were natives, the 

 remainder coming from Dir-Gueyoul, Djebel-Dira, and Zakkar. That 

 the majority of the population does not mourn the absence of the 

 king of beasts may be gathered from the fact that during eleven years 

 the Beni-Mahrez, a tribe numbering not more than 100 tents, lost 

 on an average annually 3 horses, 25 cattle, and 75 sheep from the 

 depredations of lions and leopards. Jules Gerard, the great Algerian 

 lion-hunter, calculated that each lion levied during a life of thirty-five 

 years, on an average, taxes amounting to ^^8400 on the population. 

 Little wonder that the French Government gave a capitation -fee for 

 the destruction of lions ; but before the French came the Turks 

 encouraged the Arabs to destroy them by freeing the two great lion- 

 hunting tribes — the Ouled Meloul and Ouled Cessi — from taxes, and 

 paying liberally for the skins secured. A few lions are still left in the 

 province of Constantine in the thick forests between Soukarras and 

 La Calle ; but they are rarely seen, and a hunter might spend a 

 month before coming on a fresh track. The Algerian lion seems to 

 have been justly accredited in the old days with greater courage and 

 audacity than his relatives, but he now keeps clear of man and flies 

 even from an unarmed native. At the present day it is rare for a 

 lion to attack the flocks and herds of the Arabs, and he never springs 

 as of old into the fold ; he lives by hunting, the wild boar and the 

 red deer being the chief contributors to his support. Gerard, the 

 ' Tueur des Lions,' killed thirty lions between 1848 and 1856." 



THE LEOPARD 



{Felis pardus) 



Harvard, M'KUA ; Ingivi, ZuLU, SwAZi, Matakili, and Matonga ; 

 Inkwi, Bechuana and Basuto ; Ngo, Waganda ; Nyahigzvi, 

 Manganja ; SJiabel, SOMALI ; SiveiH, Alomwi ; Tijger, Cape 

 Dutch. 



(Plate xv, fig. i) 



The leopard, or panther, as being the only large spotted cat in 

 the Old World, requires nothing on the present occasion in the way of 



