198 Wild Life in Central Africa. 



Leopards and hyaenas must kill a great number of fawns 

 which are unable to run, as these are left by the mother in 

 some cover when she is feeding. 



Hill leopards, at least those found in Mlanje, seem to 

 be smaller bodied and more profusely spotted than those 

 inhabiting lower levels, and the natives say that the 

 smaller kind are fiercer when wounded than the larger 



o 



variety. 



Leopards will often be heard grunting at night, as they 

 move about, and their grunts are sharper and quicker than 

 a lion's, and at times sound just like a saw being worked 

 in hard timber. 



They often break into goat kraals, and, like lions, they 

 will then kill much more than they can possibly eat, and it 

 is apparent that the lust for killing comes over them. 

 Lions kill their prey by biting the upper part of the neck 

 behind the ears, and leopards nearly always grip the wind- 

 pipe under the throat. When in India I saw the carcases 

 of several bullocks and cows killed by leopards, and this 

 was how they acted. Tigers kill like lions by gripping 

 with their claws, and biting the neck behind the head. I 

 heard of a case in Mlanje district of a small lot of bushpig 

 chasing a leopard into a tree, and my friend George 

 Garden saw the place and told me that the pigs must have 

 remained for some time round the base of the tree, as the 

 earth was much trampled by their feet. On another 

 occasion I heard some bushpigs grunting, and also the 

 grunts of a leopard, and I found the spoor and noticed that, 

 instead of the leopard hunting the pigs, he was being 

 hunted, as in places the pigs' tracks covered those of the 

 leopard. 



CHEETAH. 



I have only seen one skin of this animal in Nyasaland, 

 and it was obtained from natives near Dedza, in the 

 southern part of Central Angoniland. As far as I 

 remember, it was about 6ft. in length, and much whiter 

 coloured and less profusely spotted than a leopard's skin. 



