210 



scene, put a ball through the shoulder of the cheetah." It is to 

 be regretted, that, the writer of this spirited account has, after the 

 custom of his brother sportsmen in India, used the word " cheetah' 7 

 instead of "panther*' which the animal was, not "felitjttdata." 



No. 20, Page 27, Felis Pardus* 

 The Panther. 



There is not any point more disputed among Zoologists and 

 sportsmen than whether there are two distinct species of panther 

 or leopard, or whether the animals they find, differing in size and 

 color, from very nearly the weight of a tigress down to that of a 

 bull-dog, or from the darkest shade of the witch-loved black cat 

 down to a pale fawn marked with clusters of dark spots in rosettes 

 are merely varieties of the same species. I am not naturalist 

 enough to give an opinion, but as a sportsman, my impression is, 

 that there is only one species of panther which from local or 

 accidental causes differs in depth of color, in size, and perhaps in 

 habits, as do all other animals : e. ^., I have seen a town-educated 

 bull terrier run along a narrow ledge, only a few inches wide, con- 

 necting two windows overhanging a street and with as much con- 

 fidence as would a cat or one of our Indian squirrels, survey the 

 scene below him, all this time barking at passers-by : a feat that 

 certainly not one in one hundred of his country friends would 

 dream of. Again ; some of the tribes or clans of Karens who 

 inhabit the wild mountains N. E of Shuaygheen and Tonghoo in 

 Burmah live in villages, if they may be so termed, consisting of 

 one immense bamboo house or barrack raised on bamboo piles very 

 high above the ground, while the only access is through a trap- 

 door cut in the floor of one of the passages, down this a steep and 

 narrow bamboo ladder is lowered, forming about as un-dog like a 

 path as one can well imagine. I have on two occasions seen 

 Karen dogs descend these in the most matter-of-fact way. I argue 

 from this that panthers brought up in forest would soon learn to 

 avail themselves of or to haunt the branches of trees to which they 

 could obtain access and thus get looked on as a distinct species* 

 However many very experienced sportsmen believe that there are 

 at least two panthers, I call them so to distinguish Ihem from the 



