Their method of hunting is to attack the prey outright and run 

 it down, and truly small need have they of stratagem, for, because 

 of their unsurpassed speed and strength, no animal can hope to es- 

 cape them. Only very rarely does it happen that superior cunning 

 is able to save an unfortunate upon whose trail they have once start- 

 ed. All sorts of wild beasts are acceptable to them and domestic 

 sheep are a favorite booty. In this country there has been few in- 

 stances of attacks on human beings, but there is no good reason to 

 suppose this due to any compunction on their part, as their kin- 

 dred of Russia have no such scruples ; the large number of wild 

 prey whose abundance and extermination were contemporary with 

 their own is a more natural explanation of their leniency. Par- 

 ticularly fond were they of the buffalo meat, and little suspected, 

 as they consumed the young, sick, and wounded of these in the midst 

 of the stolid herds, that their own family, like that of their victims, 

 was destined to disappear forever before a new and unknown 

 enemy. 



93 



