FELIS. 59 
became convinced that it was only a variety *: this specimen is now in the British 
Museum, and has heen well figured by Mr. Wolf in the first part of Mr. D. G. Elliot’s 
magnificent ‘Monograph of the Felide.’ The black variety, also figured in the same 
plate, is well known though rare; and according to Dr. v. Frantzius it has occurred 
within our limits near the Rio San Juan, in the north of Costa Rica 2. 
The same writer informs us that in Costa Rica the Jaguar inhabits the depths of the 
forests, especially those of the mountains, as on the Dota and Candelaria ranges, and 
even ascends, as on the Volcano of Irazu, to an altitude of 8000 feet. Occasionally it 
approaches the settled districts, when hunting parties are at once organized ; for it is 
very destructive to the cattle. ‘El Tigre” is pursued and brought to bay by trained 
hounds, when the hunters attack it with lances in preference to firearms, which they 
distrust from their liability to miss fire in the moist atmosphere of the virgin 
forests 2. 
In Nicaragua the late Mr. Belt met with Jaguars; and he was assured by the natives 
that an active warfare was carried on between them and the Wari or Peccaries. 
From what he learned he did not believe that in Central America the J aguar ever 
made unprovoked attacks on mankind, but that when wounded it became very savage 
and dangerous f. 
In Guatemala Messrs. Godman and Salvin tell me that Jaguars are very generally 
distributed over the country wherever large tracts of primeval forest are to be found. 
Throughout their travels, however, they never actually met with one, though not 
unfrequently tracks were seen in the mud at the side of a pool or stream where 
an animal had gone to drink. When passing the village of Quirigua, in the lower 
portion of the Motagua valley, they purchased a fine fresh skin that had been taken 
from a “Tigre” killed a few days previously ; and in a similar manner the presence of 
Jaguars was traced in many parts of the country, the practice of the natives being to 
stretch the skin of a freshly killed animal on the ground before their ranchos until dry, 
or to hang it before their doors to tempt a passing traveller to purchase it. Once, in the 
Costa Grande of the Pacific coast, Mr. Salvin counted in an Indian’s rancho nine Jaguars’ 
skulls, which had been taken from animals killed during the previous year or two. 
Throughout this district, where vast tracts of forest spread over the whole country, 
Jaguars are doubtless very numerous and do a considerable amount of injury to the 
cattle which are reared in many haciendas. In Vera Paz, especially in the forests 
which lie between Coban and the confines of Peten, and also eastwards to the Gulf of 
Honduras, Jaguars would seem to be equally abundant, as several skins were obtained 
at Choctum and other places situated in the forest north of Coban; and “Tigre” skins 
are not unfrequently brought for sale to the Indian market of the latter town, where a 
native woman may be seen sitting with a small basket of beans of the wild cacao, some 
* Cat. Carn. &c. Mamm, Brit. Mus. p. 12. tT ‘ Naturalist m Nicaragua,’ pp. 30, 144. 
I 2 
