306 LAEGE GAME. chap. vi. 



believe to be true, and consequently pass on to their 

 masters. These are very often erroneous. Natives of the 

 country are not much to be trusted unless they imagine 

 you know too much to be easily led astray ; besides which, 

 they are naturally so poHte that if you ask them about 

 any custom or fact it is by no means unusual for them to 

 say they know all about it, rather than disagree with you. 

 Taking this into consideration, and as it does not clearly 

 appear whether these travellers spoke from hearsay or not, 

 I am inclined to beUeve the former, and that they were 

 misled by their informants, though, at the same time, 

 it is possible that some exceptional case may have occurred 

 in their own experience of a man-eating leopard, strange 

 and unlikely as it may appear to me. 



Another statement made by Mr. Layard deserves 

 notice, as being at variance with my own experience. He 

 says,^ " The leopard will gorge himself on any carrion." 

 Personally, I have always found the exact contrary to be 

 the case, for I have never once heard of or seen a leopard 

 going near dead game, unless killed by itself, or even con- 

 descending to look at other than a hve bait. Cases may, and 

 no doubt do, occur, when the animal, pressed by hunger, 

 will do so, but, as far as my experience goes, it is quite 

 the exception, though it is but fair to add that Mr. 

 Layard supports his assertion with well-authenticated 

 instances of the use of a dead bait being successful, and it 

 is only another instance of how different people in the 

 same country, and under apparently the same conditions, 

 may arrive at widely different results. 



The hyena, colonially known as the wolf, is exceed- 



^ Letter to the Field. 



