224 
THE BLACK LEOPARD. 
animal and prefer it to all other food. It will sit and watch 
on a crag above its prey (knowing well that the ibex never 
looks up), until the opportunity comes for the f^ital spring. 
But a young calf sambur or even a full-grown deer does not 
come amiss to them. I once killed a sambur from the 
shoulders of which a leopard had only a few minutes before 
torn a mass of (lesh. 
1 was fortunate once in slaying a very fine black leopard. 
On the 1 6th May, 1S57, I left the hut just as dawn was 
