THE LEOPARD. 167 



attention to the instructions which their anxious parents have endeavored to instil 

 into them. 



It may be said, and with some truth, that when hunting and shooting are made the 

 regular business of life, and more important pursuits neglected, we are merely expend- 

 ing our abilities and sacrificing our energies upon a frivolous pleasure. These objec- 

 tions may certainly have some weight when they are directed against those who devote 

 the whole of their time to mere sporting matters in such a place as England, where field 

 sports should merely be taken up as a relaxation, and as a means of obtaining exercise 

 and skill in those affairs which make an individual " more of a man." But these re- 

 quirements cannot be employed against those who, having a great amount of leisure, 

 occupy their time in hunting such animals as are to be found in India and Africa, and 

 of ridding the country of man-eating tigers and lions, destructive Leopards, or other 

 dangerous and formidable neighbors, and even when engaged in the pursuit of less 

 noble game. The African sportsman is either providing himself and his servants with 

 venison, or is enabled to feed whole families of hungry Kaffirs, who have fasted from 

 meat for many days. 



To shoot or capture a Leopard is therefore useful as well as gratifying, and we shall 

 be sure when we catch one of these beasts to have the opportunity of punishing either 

 an old offender or one that is likely to become so. 



When the Leopard has committed many deeds of rapine in one locality, he often 

 appears to think it better to decamp and try some far-removed scene of operations. 



A HOUSE some few miles from Natal had been frequently visited by a Leopard, which 

 had carried off a dog, chickens innumerable, and a pig. To support a Leopard with 

 so promiscuous and extravagant an appetite was rather unsatisfactory. So the com- 

 bined intellect of three individuals plotted a trap for this robber, and an old hen was 

 the bait. Scarcely had the night begun when a great cackling and various sounds of 

 alarm were heard proceeding from the ancient fowl. She had been fastened on to the 

 perch by some string, and it would be necessary for the Leopard to pull her off the 

 perch before he let drop the door of the trap. The ordinary mouse-trap principle had 

 been adopted, and the top of the cage secured by planks, on each end of which iron 

 half-hundred weights were placed. The planks were also laid so close together that 

 there was no room for a paw to be inserted, and the sides of the trap being made of 

 stout stakes driven some feet into the ground, and lashed together at the top and 

 bottom, made a very secure prison. 



The Leopard was too cunning on the first occasion that he paid this trap a visit, and 

 would not touch the hen ; but a few nights afterwards he came again, seized the hen, 

 and became a prisoner. I was told that when first trapped he was furious, and made 

 the most frantic efforts to escape, trying, but vainly, to force the stakes asunder. Upon 

 the appearance of a man, he became sullen and quiet, and slunk growling into the 

 corner of his cage. 



I visited him the morning after his capture, and was received with the most villainous 

 grins and looks. He could not endure being stared at, and tried every plan to hide 

 his eyes so that he need not see his persecutor. When every other plan failed, he 

 would pretend to be looking at some distant object, as though he did not notice his 

 enemy close to him. When I gazed steadily at him he could not keep up this acting 

 for longer than a minute, when he would suddenly turn and rush at me until he dashed 

 himself against the bars, and found that he was powerless to revenge himself. 



Several Kaffirs who had suffered from his depredations visited him, and exhausted 

 their abusive vocabulary by the epithets which they hurled at his devoted head. Even 

 the civilized man finds it difficult to restrain his triumph over a fallen but dreaded 

 foe, and the savage has no compunction about the matter. Around the cage, there- 

 fore, the Kaffirs are seated, and address the Leopard in the following terms : 



" You rascally cowardly dog ! you miserable eater of chickens ! so you are caught, 

 are you ? Do you remember the red and white calf you killed last moon ? That calf 

 was mine, you coward ! Why didn't you wait until I came with my assagies and 

 sticks ? But we let you eat it that your skin might be more sleek when you were 



