Some Beasts and Insects 
where his chickens were roosting, and that he 
placed the muzzle of his gun within a few inches 
of its body and fired. Instead of falling dead, it 
hissed in a dreadful manner, then sprang over 
his head and disappeared in the air. He had 
given himself up for lost. When morning came, 
however, he was overjoyed to find that the en¬ 
tire charge had entered an intervening limb of 
the tree, and his joy was as childish as his fears 
had been. 
Soon after this there was another adventure 
with a small animal in which I was the victim. 
When the weather was very hot we not only al¬ 
lowed the shutters of the reception-room to re¬ 
main open but even let down several of the shut¬ 
ters of the piazza sufficiently to allow a circula¬ 
tion of air, but not enough to allow a leopard or 
hyena to enter. Our bedroom adjoined the re¬ 
ception-room, and one night I heard a noise as if 
some animal was in there. The next night, 1 set 
a steel trap and waited developments. About 
midnight there was the sound of some heavy an¬ 
imal entering, then the muffled click of the trap 
and both animal and trap fell from the dining 
table to the floor with a great clatter. This 
waked my wife and, thinking it was a leopard, 
she gave vent to her fears as her sex usually does. 
73 
