The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two

by Sarath Kumar Ghosh

The leopard's strength is so great that he can break a steer's neck with a blow of his paw. He cannot carry a steer on his back, which a tiger can do, but still the leopard can drag the steer for some distance. As for a deer, the leopard can easily carry it. That has been discovered in a strange manner. As I have told you, a leopard lies on the bough of a tree and waits for a deer to pass under the tree. One time a leopard happened to kill a deer in that way. As he was not very hungry, he ate only a few mouthfuls from the throat and from the under part of the deer.

He wanted to keep the deer for his next big meal. But if he kept it on the ground, the jackals and hyenas would find it in his absence and eat it up. So what did the leopard do? Can you guess?

Well, the leopard carried the deer up that tree, and placed it crosswise on the fork of the bough. Then he climbed down and went for a prowl. He knew that the thieves of the jungle—the jackals and the hyenas—could not climb the tree and steal his dinner.

But a party of hunters passed that way and saw the deer's body on the fork of the tree; and they knew that a leopard had carried it up there.

How could they know that? Very easily. The hunters brought down the deer's body and examined it. They found that the deer's throat and under part had been eaten.

Now I must tell you that hunters know from the study of the jungle that each wild animal has a different way of eating its prey. A leopard always eats first the throat and the under part; but a tiger always eats a hind leg first. So these hunters knew that it must be a leopard that had eaten the deer's throat and under part.

And the hunters also knew before, from their study of the jungle, that a leopard can climb trees; but they knew that more certainly after this incident. How? Because they knew from the deer's throat that a leopard had killed it and partly eaten it; and they found the deer in the tree. So they concluded that the leopard must have climbed the tree and hidden the deer there.

This also proves the fact that the leopard is really an intelligent animal. The lion and the tiger hide their prey by merely placing it in a hollow in the ground, and covering it loosely with sand or leaves. But unless the lion and the tiger are very watchful, the thieves of the jungle often steal their dinner; that is, the jackals and the hyenas smell the flesh, and uncover it and eat it up.

But the leopard hides his prey more securely. As he has the power of climbing trees, he uses that power to carry his prey to the fork of a tree, where the thieves of the jungle cannot reach it.

My dear children, there are many people who do not use the natural gifts they have. The leopard does better than that. He uses his gift of climbing trees in two ways: first to catch an animal passing beneath, and then to hide the prey in the tree. Had the lion and the tiger continued to use their former gift of climbing trees, they too would have been able to hide their dinner safe from the thieves. Instead, they now find it stolen many a time, and have to go hungry.