190 THE LEOPARD 



early dawn to a curious, throaty, coughing bray, 

 something like the immature effort of an insane 

 donkey. As a rule, the female gives birth to two 

 or three cubs, which when young make charming 

 pets, but as maturity is approached are better 

 deposited in some zoological collection. One of 

 these creatures was for some time an interesting 

 feature of the Consular premises when I was 

 serving many years ago in the Protectorate of 

 British Nyasaland, and had never exhibited the 

 smallest symptoms of ferocity until one day, 

 being approached by one of my staff, she attacked 

 him without warning, and his escape from 

 possibly serious injury could only be attributed 

 to the chain with which she was secured having 

 become entangled in the shafts of an adjacent 

 wheel-barrow. 



Although assuredly but few of these animals 

 are shot, except perhaps in circumstances where 

 a raid on a poultry yard may have resulted in the 

 failure of the prowler to find his way out again, 

 nevertheless many are annually secured by the 

 natives in cleverly contrived traps of several 

 patterns. The most general in Zambezia con- 

 sists of a heavy log of wood supported at one end 

 and placed between two lines of closely driven, 

 strong stakes. A bait is arranged in such a 

 manner that at the moment of its disturbance 

 the support which holds the log up is pulled away, 

 and the heavy weight falls upon the leopard's 

 back. Many are caught by this contrivance, and 

 by others which are but variations of it. 



The bodily strength of the leopard is, in my 



