This is caused by the putrid flesh which they
are constantly tearing, and which is apt to cause gangrene by
inoculation.
It is a prevalent idea that a leopard will not eat putrid meat,
but that he forsakes a rotten carcase and seeks fresh prey.
There is no doubt that a natural love of slaughter induces him to
a constant search for prey, but it has nothing to do with the
daintiness of his appetite. A leopard will eat any stinking
offal that offers, and I once had a melancholy proof of this.
I was returning from a morning's hunting; it was a bitter day;
the rain was pouring in torrents, the wind was blowing a gale and
sweeping the water in sheets along the earth. The hounds were
following at my horse's heels, with their cars and sterns down,
looking very miserable, and altogether it was a day when man and
beast should have been at home. Presently, upon turning a corner
of the road, I saw a Malabar boy of about sixteen years of age,
squatted shivering by the roadside. His only covering being a
scanty cloth round his loins, I told him to get up and go on or
he would be starved with cold. He said something in reply, which
I could not understand, and repeating my first warning, I rode
on. It was only two miles to my house, but upon arrival I could
not help thinking that the boy must be ill, and having watched
the gate for some time to see if he passed by, I determined to
send for him.
Accordingly, I started off a couple of men with orders to carry
him up if he were sick.
They returned in little more than an hour, but the poor boy was
dead! - sitting crouched in the same position in which I had seen
him. He must have died of cold and starvation; he was a mere
skeleton.
I sent men to the spot, and had him buried by the roadside, and a
few days after I rode down to see where they had laid him.
A quantity of fresh-turned earth lay scattered about, mingled
with fragments of rags. Bones much gnawed lay here and there on
the road, and a putrid skull rolled from a shapeless hole among a
confused and horrible heap. The leopards had scratched him up
and devoured him; their footprints were still fresh upon the damp
ground.
Both leopards and chetahs are frequently caught at Newera Ellia.
The common trap is nothing more or less than an old-fashioned
mouse-trap, with a falling door on a large scale; this is baited
with a live kid or sheep; but the leopard is naturally so wary
that he frequently refuses to enter the ominous-looking building,
although he would not hesitate to break into an ordinary shed.
