278 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WAYS 
CHAP. 
or in strangling its victim, should the bone resist its 
strength. When the animal is dead, the leopard 
never attacks the hind-quarters first, according to the 
custom of the tiger, but it tears the belly open, and 
drags out all the viscera, making its first meal upon 
the heart, lungs, liver, and the inside generally. It 
then retreats to some neighbouring hiding-place, and, 
if undisturbed, it will return to its prey a little after 
sundown on the following day. 
It is far more difficult to circumvent a leopard 
than a tiger; the latter seldom or never looks up¬ 
wards to the trees, therefore it does not perceive 
the hidden danger when the hunter is watching from 
his elevated post; but the leopard approaches its 
kill in the most wary and cautious manner, crouch¬ 
ing occasionally, and examining every yard of the 
ground before it, at the same time scanning the 
overhanging boughs, which it so frequently seeks as 
a place of refuge. Upon many occasions, when the 
disappointed watcher imagines that the leopard has 
forsaken its kill, and that his patience will be un¬ 
rewarded, the animal may be closely scanning him 
from the dense bush, under cover of which it was 
noiselessly approaching. In such a case the leopard 
would retreat as silently as it had advanced, and the 
watcher would return home from a fruitless vigil, 
under the impression that the leopard had never 
been within a mile of his position. One of the 
cleverest birds in creation is the ordinary crow of all 
tropical countries, which lives well by the exercise of 
its wits; nothing escapes the observation of this 
