THE LEOPARD 
are seldom seen by daylight unless systematically hunted with dogs, as 
they are very nocturnal in their habits, and take shelter during the daytime 
in thick bush, or forest, or in beds of reeds. Once as I was passing through 
some forest on the bank of a river near the Zambesi, a leopard jumped to 
the ground from a big tree just in front of me. It had been lying stretched 
along a large horizontal branch, perhaps on the look out for an impala 
or a bushbuck. On another occasion, hearing a lot of baboons barking a 
little ahead of me, I went to see what was the matter, and presently saw 
a large number of these grotesque animals seated or standing on their 
hands and feet amongst the upper branches of a large tree, all of them 
barking and chattering, and evidently in an intense state of excitement. 
Thinking there might be a lion or a python hidden by the grass growing 
beneath the tree, I advanced cautiously towards it, and was within thirty 
yards of it, when a leopard sprang to the ground and disappeared like a 
flash. The baboons, which had probably seen me before the leopard did so, 
at once followed suit and ran off. I could not find any sign of a baboon 
having been killed, and imagined that the leopard had chased them into 
the tree, but had then been deterred from trying to seize one of their 
number amongst the upper branches by the menacing attitude of the whole 
troop. It is possible, however, that these baboons were about to attack 
the leopard, as I have heard on very good authority that in the western 
district of the Bahr-el-Ghazal Province leopards are not uncommonly 
mobbed and killed by the dog -faced baboons of that district. Where their 
habitat is amongst rocky hills, leopards may sometimes be seen sunning 
themselves in the early morning or lying in the shade of overhanging 
rocks during the heat of the day. On a rainy day in East Africa I once saw 
a leopard climb the slanting trunk of a large thorn tree in order to obtain 
a good view of some Uganda kobs, which, although it had no doubt 
already scented them, must have been previously hidden from it by the 
long grass. Speaking generally, however, leopards are not often seen in 
broad daylight by sportsmen and travellers in Africa, though their tracks 
may be numerous on game trails and native footpaths. The chief prey of 
leopards are, no doubt, the small and medium-sized antelopes, such as 
dik-diks, duikers, klipspringers, impalas and reedbucks, but they also 
kill a great many monkeys and baboons, as well as rock rabbits, and 
even smaller animals, and such birds as bustards, guinea-fowls and 
francolins. I remember a leopard taking fowls night after night from the 
trees and bushes in which they were roosting, outside the cottage of a 
211 
