70 FELID^. 



He can conceal himself in the most wonderful way, his spotted 

 hide blending with the ground, and liis lithe loose form being com- 

 pressible into an inconceivably small space. I quite agree with 

 Forsyth, from whom I have taken several of the above traits, that 

 he is more courageous than the tiger ; if bi'ought to bay, the 

 leopard wnU charge again and again with the utmost ferocity. 



Large leopards, or panthers as Jerdou calls them, often kill 

 cattle, ponies, donkeys, and large deer such as sambar, but the 

 smaller varieties have to content themselves with inferior prey. 

 The leopard, however, is absolutely without prejudice in the matter 

 of food — all beasts, birds, and, I believe, reptiles that are not too 

 large to kill or too small to catch are the same to him ; he will 

 strike down an ox or bound upon a sparrow. If he has a predilec- 

 tion, it is probably for dogs and jackals. He is a terrible foe to 

 monkevs, and kills many of the hanumans or langurs who inhabit 

 the rocky hills in which he delights. Leopards, like tigers, some- 

 times kill their prey by breaking the neck ; but I am disposed to 

 believe that they frequently either tear open the throat or hold it 

 in Iheir jaws and strangle their victim. However, I have not had 

 many opportunities of seeing animals killed by them. They carry 

 away the body like tigers, and hide what they do not eat, very often 

 in a tree. 



Leopards occasionally take to man-eating and, owing to their 

 boldness, become even a more fearful scourge than tigers. In two 

 parts of India, the Sonthal Pergunnahs south of Bhagalpur, and 

 !Seoni in the Central Provinces, at about the same time (1857-00), 

 leopards were singularly destructive to human life, taking men, 

 women, and children by night out of houses, or off the machans or 

 platforms built in the fields to watch the crops from. One leopard 

 near Seoni, commemorated by Sterndale and Forsyth, is said to 

 have killed 200 human beings in two years before he was shot. 



The idea that leopards object to cross water, though supported 

 by an observation of Blyth's that a tame animal showed great 

 aversion to wetting his feet, is erroneous. Like other wild animals, 

 they svA'im well. 



The leopard, as a rule, is a very silent animal, rarely, except 

 when provoked, uttering a sound. When surprised and when 

 charging, he makes noises similar to those made by a tiger ; but 

 his call is very different. I have occasionally heard a sound which 

 agrees with the description I have received both in Africa and in 

 India of this animal's cry, and which corresponds to the account 

 of it given by Captain Baldwin in the ' Large Game of Bengal.' 

 It consists of a peculiar harsh noise between a grunt and a cough, 

 repeated quickly three or four times. Forsyth calls it a harsh 

 grating roar. 



The period of gestation does not appear to have been accurately 

 recorded, but is said to be about the same as in the tiger and 

 lion, or fifteen weeks. The young are born about February or 

 March in the Peninsula of India, and a litter usually consists of 

 two, three, or four cubs. They probably take about the same 



