THE LEOPARD 45 



seldom seen, and never heard by day. Accustomed 

 to lie up in the densest thickets, they slip silently away 

 at the first hint of approaching danger ; and it is only 

 when accompanied by dogs, or by the merest chance, 

 that the hunter happens upon one during his wandering 

 through the bush. In the Sabi, the sandy bed of almost 

 every dry spruit bears daily witness to the patrolling 

 of one or a pair of leopards during the past hours of 

 darkness, and it is remarkable how individuals cling 

 each to his or her own section of country. It has happened 

 again and again that when a leopard has been accounted 

 for in some piece of bush or sandspruit, where nightly 

 tracks and numerous ' ' kills ' ' have long borne witness 

 to his presence, the range has remained tenantless for 

 a considerable period, perhaps even for months, though, 

 should conditions be favourable, it has, sooner or later, 

 been taken over by some new arrival, some animal which 

 recognizes in it an improvement on a previous hunting- 

 ground, or which, freed from maternal control, is setting 

 up for itself. 



During the dry season leopards seldom range far from 

 the neighbourhood of the permanent water ; but, as 

 the spring rains fill the forest pools, and there is a general 

 migration of the herbivorous animals from their relatively 

 restricted winter quarters to the more ample feeding- 

 grounds now open to them, the leopard, too, feels the 

 necessity of a change of quarters. Rising from his lair in 

 the reeds hard by the impalas' drinking-place, he stretches 

 his limbs and rolls for the last time in the bed of rotten 

 leaves under the shady tree scene of many a hearty meal. 

 Then, after a few stealthy glances round, he silently 

 moves off inland to the neighbourhood of one of the small 

 forest pools, where the adjacent dense thorn bush promises 

 a secure day retreat and favourable night ambush. 



