THE AFRICAN LEOPARD 



Colonel Roosevelt Bags a Leopard — Captures Cubs Alive — Kermit's Good Luck; He Kills 

 a Leopard at a Distance of Twelve Feet — Facts About This Bloodthirsty Feline. 



While hunting buffaloes and lions on the Kapiti Plains Colonel Roosevelt 

 incidentally came across and killed a leopard. The cubs were captured alive. 



While much smaller than the lion the leopard is generally conceded tO' be 

 the most dangerous and most formidable beast of prey in East Africa. It is 

 more blood-thirsty, ferocious, cunning and destructive than the lion. It is 

 stealthy, tricky and truculent. The cry of the leopard is a hoarse grunt, some- 

 times also sounding like a snarl. Its food consists of any mammals it can 

 overpower. Its favorite diet is monkeys, smaller antelopes, gazelles, and, in 

 mountainous districts, also wart-hogs. It hunts its prey preferably at night 

 when the antelopes visit their drinking places and the monkeys sleep on steep 

 rocks and in trees. The unceasing bleating of antelopes and the intense shriek- 

 ing of monkeys always indicate that their enemy is attacking them. The big 

 baboons, however, are well able to offer a stout resistance, for their weapons 

 are sharp and larger than those of the leopard. 



A couple of weeks later Kermit and Mr. McMillan were out beating for 

 game on the Juja farm, the latter's magnificent ranch on the Athi river, where 

 the Roosevelt party stopped for several weeks while hunting in the vicinity, 

 and suddenly came on the spoor of a leopard in a dry watercourse surrounded 

 by dense jungles. The young sportsman had an exciting encounter with the 

 ferocious beast, which came near killing one of his beaters and threatened his 

 own life. Driven out by the beaters from the thicket, where it was in hiding, 

 the furious beast, with a lightning-like rapidity, which defies description, came 

 running towards the hunters and charged Kermit, who was only a few paces 

 from the jungle. He pulled the trigger just in the nick of time, for had the 

 mortal bullet hit the beast a second later it would already have buried its claws 

 in his flesh. The animal was a small female weighing only forty-five pounds, 

 while large ones often weigh a hundred pounds more. Its spotted fur, which 

 was carefully prepared by Prof. Heller, is one of the young sportsman's most 

 valued trophies from his East African hunt. 



An adventure with a leopard, which occurred. in this neighborhood a short 

 time ago, is told by a famous African hunter. Returning towards evening 

 to his camp, his attention was drawn to a tree on which a crowd of baboons 

 were shrieking with all their might. Since monkeys are preyed on by the 



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