THE LEOPARD 51 



must be held responsible where several animals are des- 

 troyed at the same time, except, indeed, where a leopardess 

 has one or more well-grown cubs to provide for. 



African leopards are no less partial to dogs as articles 

 of diet than are their congeners in India. Some years 

 ago five curs, taken from native poachers, were at Ranger 

 Wolhuter's camp by the Olifants River. At dusk they 

 were fastened up for security to a log near the native 

 fire. The night proved dark and drizzly, and a leopard, 

 stealing silently into the camp, took three of them away, 

 having, as was evident from the tracks, returned for 

 them one by one. It was followed up and shot by the 

 ranger, with the aid of his own dogs, on the following 

 morning, and proved to be an old animal which for some 

 time past had been in the habit of stealing the fowls from 

 an adjacent kraal, climbing the trees at night and snatch- 

 ing them from the branches in which they were roosting. 

 I have never heard of an authenticated case of a man- 

 eating leopard in South Africa, though stories are some- 

 times told by old natives of children having been taken 

 in past days. The reason may lie in the fact that the 

 natives would never permit any animal to survive a 

 first offence of this nature. 



Savage and formidable as the leopard undoubtedly is, 

 he will not face large and courageous dogs by daylight 

 if he can avoid it, and I recollect a couple of such animals, 

 belonging to one of the rangers, pinning and holding a 

 leopard until their master came up to dispatch it. Mr. 

 Sanderson, who sometimes hunts leopards with his large 

 pack of dogs, often finds very little left by the time he 

 arrives on the scene. A leopard, in fact, acts very much 

 like an ordinary domestic cat in face of dogs. Driven 

 to bay in some corner, he can and will defy them, but 

 should a way of apparent escape lie open he will take 



