[Footnote 1:  F. melas, Peron and Leseur.]

[Illustration:  LEOPARD AND CHEETAH.]

The Singhalese hunt them for the sake of their extremely beautiful skins, but prefer taking them in traps and pitfalls, and occasionally in spring cages formed of poles driven firmly into the ground, within which a kid is generally fastened as a bait; the door being held open by a sapling bent down by the united force of several men, and so arranged as to act as a spring, to which a noose is ingeniously attached, formed of plaited deer’s hide.  The cries of the kid attract the leopard, which being tempted to enter, is enclosed by the liberation of the spring, and grasped firmly round the body by the noose.

Like the other carnivora, leopards are timid and cowardly in the presence of man, never intruding on him voluntarily, and making a hasty retreat when approached.  Instances have, however, occurred of individuals having been slain by them; and it is believed, that, having once tasted human blood, they, like the tiger, acquire an habitual relish for it.  A peon, on duty by night at the court-house of Anarajapoora, was some years ago carried off by a leopard from a table in the verandah on which he had laid down his head to sleep.  At Batticaloa a “cheetah” in two instances in succession was known to carry off men placed on a stage erected in a tree to drive away elephants from rice-land:  but such cases are rare, and, as compared with their dread of the bear, the natives of Ceylon entertain but slight apprehensions of the “cheetah.”  It is, however, the dread of sportsmen, whose dogs when beating in the jungle are especially exposed to its attacks:  and I am aware of an instance in which a party having tied their dogs to the tent-pole for security, and fallen asleep round them, a leopard sprang into the tent and carried off a dog from the midst of its slumbering masters.  On one occasion being in the mountains near Kandy, a messenger despatched to me through the jungle excused his delay by stating that a “cheetah” had seated itself in the only practicable path, and remained quietly licking its fore paws and rubbing them over its face, till he was forced to drive it, with stones, into the forest.

Leopards are strongly attracted by the peculiar odour which accompanies small-pox.  The reluctance of the natives to submit themselves or their children to vaccination exposes the island to frightful visitations of this disease; and in the villages in the interior it is usual on such occasions to erect huts in the jungle to serve as temporary hospitals.  Towards these the leopards are certain to be allured; and the medical officers are obliged to resort to increased precautions in consequence.  This fact is connected with a curious native superstition.  Amongst the avenging scourges sent direct from the gods, the Singhalese regard both the ravages of the leopard, and the visitation of the small-pox.  The latter they call par