290 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



leopard had begun a career of woman-killing. It killed 

 one woman by a bite in the throat, and ate the body. It 

 sprang on and badly wounded another, but was driven off 

 in time to save her life. This was probably the leopard 

 Heller trapped and shot, in the very locality where it had 

 committed its ravages; it was an old male, but very thin, 

 with worn teeth. In these cases the reason for the beast's 

 action was plain: in each instance a big, savage male 

 had found his powers failing, and had been driven to prey 

 on the females and young of the most helpless of animals, 

 man. But another attack, of which Piggott told us, was 

 / apparently due to the queer individual freakishness always 

 to be taken into account in dealing with wild beasts. A 

 Masai chief, with two or three followers, was sitting eating 

 under a bush, when, absolutely without warning, a leopard 

 sprang on him, clawed him on the head and hand, without 

 biting him, and as instantly disappeared. Piggott attended 

 to the wounded man. 



In riding in the neighborhood, through the tall dry 

 grass, which would often rattle in the wind, I was amused 

 to find that if I suddenly heard the sound I was apt to stand 

 alertly on guard, quite unconsciously and instinctively, 

 because it suggested the presence of a rattlesnake. During 

 the years I lived on a ranch in the West I was always hear- 

 ing and killing rattlesnakes, and although I knew well that 

 no African snake carries a rattle, my subconscious senses 

 always threw me to attention if there was a sound resembling 

 that made by a rattler. Tarlton, by the way, told me an 

 interesting anecdote of a white-tailed mongoose and a 

 snake. The mongoose was an inmate of the house where 

 he dwelt with his brother and was quite tame. One day 



