2: F. melas, Peron and Leseur.
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 to act as a spring, to which a noose is ingeniously attached, formed of plaited deer hide. The cries of the kid attract the leopards, one of 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, they 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 like the tiger, it is believed, that, having once tasted human blood they acquire an habitual relish for it. A peon on night duty at the courthouse at 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 the rice-lands: 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 one instance in which a party having tied their dogs to the tent-pole for security, and fallen asleep around them, a leopard sprang into the tent and carried off a dog from the midst of its slumbering masters.
They 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. 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.
Major Skinner, who for upwards of forty years has had occasion to live almost constantly in the interior, occupied in the prosecution of surveys and the construction of roads, is strongly of opinion that towards man the disposition of the leopard is essentially pacific, and that, when discovered, its natural impulse is to effect its escape. In illustration of this, I insert an extract from one of his letters, which describes an adventure highly characteristic of this instinctive timidity.
"On the occasion of one of my visits to Adam's Peak in the prosecution of my military reconnoissances of the mountain, zone, I fixed on a pretty little patena (i.e. meadow) in the midst of an extensive and dense forest in the southern segment of the Peak Range, as a favourable spot for operations. It would have been difficult, after descending from the cone of the peak, to have found one's way to this point, in the midst of so vast a wilderness of trees, had not long experience assured me that good game tracks would be found leading to it, and by one of them I reached it. It was in the afternoon, just after one of those tropical sun-showers which decorate every branch and blade with its pendant brilliants, and the little patena was covered with game, either driven to the open space by the drippings from the leaves or tempted by the freshness of the pasture: there were several pairs of elk, the bearded antlered male contrasting finely with his mate; and other varieties of game in a profusion not to be found in any place frequented by man. It was some time before I could allow them to be disturbed by the rude fall of the axe, in our necessity to establish our bivouac for the night, and they were so unaccustomed to danger, that it was long before they took alarm at our noises.
"The following morning, anxious to gain a height in time to avail myself of the clear atmosphere of sunrise for my observations, I started off by myself through the jungle, leaving orders for my men, with my surveying instruments, to follow my track by the notches which I cut in the bark of the trees. On leaving the plain, I availed myself of a fine wide game track which lay in my direction, and had gone, perhaps half a mile from the camp, when I was startled by a slight rustling in the nilloo[1] to my right, and in another instant, by the spring of a magnificent leopard which, in a bound of full eight feet in height over the lower brushwood, lighted at my feet within eighteen inches of the spot whereon I stood, and lay in a crouching position, his fiery gleaming eyes fixed on me.
1: A species of one of the suffruticose Acanthacea which grows abundantly in the mountain ranges of Ceylon. See ante, [p. 90 n.]