A LEOPARD AND GIRAFFE 



I spent two days here working and hunting, but 

 all game was very scarce, and I saw nothing but dik- 

 dik. Of these I shot two, which provided me with 

 food for two days. While hunting them I came 

 across a young giraffe only a few days old that had 

 been killed by a leopard a few minutes before. The 

 tracks and marks of the struggle told the story very 

 plainly. The leopard had jumped out from a bush 

 and chased the giraffe for about 20 yards, when, 

 springing forward, it had caught the helpless animal 

 by the neck and choked it to death. It had then 

 either gone off to call its family to join in the meal, 

 or more probably had heard me coming and made its 

 escape. The giraffe proved to be a young bull, very 

 pale in colour, buff rather than chocolate, and in the 

 centre of the dark patches there were numerous white 

 hairs. I had noticed that the cows are always lighter 

 in colour than the bulls, but I did not see a sufficient 

 number of calves to be able to say whether this pale 

 tint is usual, and characteristic of young animals. I 

 had it carried back into camp and skinned. On 

 examining the skull I found that the two horns on 

 the forehead were just noticeable, but otherwise it 

 presented no unusual features of interest. 



My headman, who was born in Jubaland, said 

 that he thought there was another water-hole called 

 Liboyi some 20 miles to the westward, and it was 

 in the hope of finding it that we started shortly 

 after midnight on the third day after my arrival at 

 Robleh. We marched along a very dim trail by 

 lamplight in silence, for we were all beginning to 

 feel the effects of hard work and bad food. But as 

 the light grew I noticed that we had entered a more 

 open bush country, and a little later we found a 



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