158 Wild Beasts 



has said the same of other Felidcs. The difficulty Hes in 

 comparing these species so as to assign the phenomenon 

 to its real cause. The question is, how does it happen 

 that a panther walks into a pit more frequently than a 

 tiger? It cannot be said that it is because the latter has the 

 more intelligence ; facts do not sustain such an explanation, 

 and yet the absence of deliberation stands in a direct rela- 

 tion with incompleteness of mental development. 



It might be argued that the dissimilarity was due to 

 temperament, and that while neither could be absorbed by 

 one idea — that of committing a murder, for instance — 

 without some temporary disregard of everything else, the 

 panther was more liable to this state of mind than its rela- 

 tive. In ordinary parlance such a tendency would be called 

 courage, and its opposite timidity, although that is rather 

 a loose manner of speaking. However the truth may be, 

 there is no doubt that a tiger will often come up to a bait 

 fixed over a pitfall, examine it carefully on every side, and 

 finally walk off with that pleasant grin of his, while the 

 panther precipitates himself into the cavity. 



This bea.st is very partial to dog meat, and the canine 

 population of countries where panthers abound have an 

 abiding fear of them. Sir Samuel Baker ("The Rifle and 

 Hound in Ceylon ") says that his dog " Smut," who weighed 

 a hundred and thirty pounds, and was "a cross between a 

 Manilla bloodhound and some big bitch at the Cape," made 

 a practice of hunting leopards on his own account. This 

 was a very unusual thing, however, since the largest breeds 

 of the East, Poligar dogs and Tibetan mastiffs, would cer- 

 tainly be at a great disadvantage in such an encounter. 



