Not a mark on him, he was throttled rather than shot. If you haven’t read yesterday’s post, please do and follow the link before being horrified at my posting pictures of a stuffed leopard.
He’s been in a garage (not always the same garage) for over 30 years, but before that he held pride (I don’t know what the term is for a leopard*, I trust he’ll forgive comparison with a lion) of place on the landing in my childhood home. I don’t know if he’d picked up any creepy-crawlies, Al and I discussed the possibility of putting him in the freezer to kill anything unwanted, but leopard and case are jolly heavy – they’d fit in my freezer if I cleared it out first, but we’d never be able to lift it out again. And I wouldn’t care to take him out of the case where he’s resided for the past century. It would need specialist assistance.
Not that it isn’t available, they did just that at Norwich Castle Museum a while ago. There was a problem with their extensive collection of stuffed animals, I think that woolly bear got in (that’s the larva of the carpet beetle) and everything was put in freezers to kill the bugs. I gather that, ironically enough, it was the polar bear that posed most problems in terms of freezer space.
He’s at the end of the landing and there isn’t much natural light there. Having lights on or doors open to let the light in from the windows just made reflection and glare, so these pictures were taken using flash, something I normally avoid with my camera as it’s better without. But there we go – come to the blog party on 26th May and you can see Bobby for yourself. And see me too, of course. And each other.
*I’ve looked it up, it’s a leap or lepe of leopards. Bobby hasn’t done much leaping of late, I have to say.