48 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



ram, which, though cleaned, weighed as much as the 

 leopard itself, stuck in a fork fully twenty feet from the 

 ground. How such a feat is accomplished has always 

 been a mystery to me ; but a few days need be spent 

 in the bush without coming across evidence of its suc- 

 cessful performance. A hunter, whose experience in the 

 eastern Transvaal was in past days second to none, 

 relates having once seen a giraffe calf, which could not 

 have weighed much less than 200 pounds, lying across 

 a branch about twelve feet from the ground, and many 

 other instances of the strength of these cats are well 

 authenticated. 



Though leopards will thus attack the young of even 

 the giraffe, as is further recorded by Mr. Selous in his 

 " African Nature Notes," and though the immature of 

 practically all the larger antelopes occasionally fall 

 victims, their prey consists, generally speaking, of animals 

 not larger than a reedbuck. On a few occasions I have 

 known full-grown kudu and waterbuck cows to be killed, 

 and Colonel Roosevelt speaks of the death of a Grevy 

 zebra ; but the larger horned ruminants are generally 

 left alone. Once my grey horse " Pompey " came in 

 from grazing with slight claw marks on his quarters, 

 which, from their position and size, had undoubtedly 

 been inflicted by a leopard. If the latter mistook 

 " Pompey," who happened to be shod behind at the 

 time, for some hornless individual of the antelope tribe, 

 he was probably roughly disillusioned. 



Although these cats certainly kill a large number of 

 the smaller antelopes, such as reedbuck, impalas, bush- 

 buck, duikers and so on, their food consists by no means 

 entirely of buck. In fact the leopard is liberal in his 

 ideas as to diet, and devours impartially almost any 

 warm-blooded creature which he can overcome, be it 



