WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



ally watchful, the beast returned the very next night, 

 seized a negress, and carried her about two hundred and 

 fifty feet, but dropped her when the guards fired at it. 

 The woman was picked up dead, her throat having been 

 bitten through and through. 



The food of the leopard consists of any mammals it 

 can overpower. Its favorite diet are monkeys, smaller 

 antelopes, gazelles, and, in mountainous districts, also 

 dassies (Procavia). 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 

 shrieking of monkeys always indicate that their enemy 

 is attacking them. The big baboons, however, are well 

 able to offer a stout resistance, for their incisors are as 

 sharp and longer than those of the leopard. 



The leopard is more l;)loodthirsty, ferocious, cunning, 

 and destructive than the lion, whose character is really 

 "noble" compared with the stealthy, tricky ways of 

 the former. The cry of the leopard is a hoarse grunt. 

 It sometimes also sounds like a snarl. I have heard it 

 not only at night, but also in the afternoon. 



A great many writers on wild animals claim tha:t the 

 leopard disdains carrion and prefers live game, the 

 blood of which it loves to drink. This fallacious state- 

 ment has almost become an axiom, and is freely copied 

 by compilers of natural histories. 



I have caught about forty leopards in traps which 



240 



