The leopard then, as a rule keeps to the wooded parts of India.  In the long grassy jungles bordering the Koosee he is not generally met with.  He is essentially a predatory animal, always on the outlook for a meal; round the villages, nestling amid their sal forests, he is continually on the prowl, looking out for a goat, a calf, or unwary dog.  His appearance and habits are well known; he generally selects for his lair, a retired spot surrounded by dense jungle.  The one we were after now had his home in a matted jungle, growing out of a pool of water, which had collected in a long hollow, forming the receptacle of the surface drainage from the adjacent slopes.  This hollow stretched for miles towards the creek which we had been beating up; and the locality having moisture and other concurring elements in its favour, the vegetation had attained a luxuriance rarely seen in the dry uplands, where the west winds lick up the moisture, and the soil is arid and unpromising.  The matted intertwining branches of the creepers had formed an almost impervious screen, and on the basis thus formed, amid the branches and creepers, the leopards had formed their lair.  Beneath, was a still stagnant pool; above, was the leafy foliage.  The tracks led down to a well-worn path.

Climbing like a cat, as the leopards can do, they found no difficulty in gaining a footing on the mass of vegetation.  They generally select some retired spot like this, and are very seldom seen in the daytime.  With the approach of night, however, they begin their wandering in quest of prey.  In a beat such as we were having ’all is fish that comes to the net,’ and leopards, if they are in the jungle, have to yield to the advance of the beaters, like the other denizens of the forest.

Experience tells you that the leopard is daring and ferocious.  Old experienced hands warn you, that unless you can make sure of your shot, it is unwise to fire at a leopard approaching.  It is better to wait till he has got past you, or at all events is ‘broadside on.’  If you only wound him as he is approaching, he will almost to a certainty make straight at you, but if you shoot him as he is going past, he will, maddened by pain and anger, go straight forward, and you escape his charge.  He is more courageous than a tiger, and a very dangerous customer at close quarters.  Up in one of the forests in Oudh, a friend of mine was out one day after leopard, with a companion who belonged to the forest department.  My friend’s companion fired at a leopard as it was approaching him, and wounded it severely.  Nothing daunted, and recognising whence its hurt had come, it charged directly down on the concealed sportsman, and before he could half realise the position, sprang on him, caught his left arm in its teeth, and began mauling him with its claws.  His presence of mind did not desert him; noticing close by the stump of a sal tree, that had been eaten by white ants till the harder parts of the wood alone remained, standing