Chapter LI. 



LEOPARDS AND LYNXES. 



Quite as widespread in China as the tiger, perhaps more 

 -so, is the leopard (Felis pardiis). Authors sometimes write 

 ■of this animal under the name of panther, but the best 

 authorities are convinced that the dual title is to be explain- 

 ed from the fact that leopards vary greatly, especially in 

 size, and not because there is any great physiological differ- 

 ence. We shall therefore, stick to the one name, leopard, in 

 such notes as it may be desirable to write under this head. 

 All that was said respecting the lack of definite information 

 about the tiger in China applies to the leopard. There are 

 references to be collected here and there from amongst books 

 of travel, etc ; but no detailed or scientific account such as 

 we have in the writings of Swinhoe and David concerning 

 birds. Major Davies, in his entertaining and valuable work 

 on Yunnan and its borders, mentions seeing leopards. — pan- 

 thers, he calls them — on various occasions, one of which had 

 been caught on the hills and was kept in a cage at a yamen. 

 Richard's"Geography"especially mentions leopards inAnhwei, 

 Kwangsi, Yunnan, and Manchuria, whilst I find references to 

 it in Mr. Wade's "With Boat and Gun" from Ningpo, Wuhu, 

 Kiukiang, etc. As a matter of fact, the leopard is the most 

 widespread of all the wild members of the cat family with 

 the exception of the lynx. It stretches right away from 

 Southern Africa, to Northern Asia, Tibet excepted, where 

 the ounce or snow leopard maintains the dignity of the 

 race. It is, therefore, like its bigger relative, acclimatized in 

 many realms and accustomed to the widest extremes of heat 

 and cold. Like the tiger, also, its favourite habitat is 

 amongst hilly country with plenty of cover and abundant 

 shelter under rocks or in caves. There its protective colour- 

 ing serves it perfectly, the ground tints being those of the 

 rock or soil on which it lies, and the spots corresponding 

 exactly to patches of shadow from the over-head growth. An 

 English sportsman tells how he was just on the point of 

 ■sliding down a rock to land on a convenient boulder when the 

 said boulder sprang into life with a snarl and was off before 

 the hunter realized how woefully his eyes had betrayed him. 



