765 



FELID.E. 



FELID^E. 



766 



where flocks and herds arc not, deer principally, upon which it is 

 said to drop in the manner described by Charlevoix with regard to 

 the elk. 



The chace of this animal is conducted, in different parts of the 

 American continent, according to the prevailing manners of the 

 people who go forth to hunt it. Thus Captain Head relhtes that as 

 soon as the dogs- unkennel a Lion (Puma) or Tiger (Jaguar) they 

 pursue him until he stops to defend himself. If the dogs fly upon 

 him, the Guacho jumps off his horse, and whilst he is engaged with 

 the dogs, knocks him on the head with the balls ; but if the dogs 

 bay and do not go boldly in, the Guacho throws his lasso over him, 

 and gallops off, dragging him along the ground, while the hounds 

 rush upon him and tear him. In the north he generally falls by the 

 rifle, after he is 'treed' by the hunting party. Audubon gives a 

 most lively account of an expedition of this kind, headed by a 

 squatter on the banks of the Coldwater River, which ended in the 

 Puma's death. The ' cougar/ or ' panther,' as Audubon terms him, 

 was driven 'to tree" twice, and each time received balls in that 

 situation. Several go in company generally, for when the infuriated 

 animal has had to deal with one hunter only, the consequences have 

 been sometimes fatal to the latter. 



Puma (Felii eoiicolor}. 



Cuvier remarks, that as it would appear that this animal extends 

 or did extend from California to Patagonia, he has been careful in his 

 researches to discover whether there were not many species, or at 

 least varieties, in this great extent of country ; the conclusion at 

 which he arrived was, that one species only existed. 



The reader must bear in mind that there is another Cat of a 

 uniform colour, Fdit unicolor, Trail), which is said to inhabit the 

 forests of Demerara, and is one-half less than the Puma. The Black 

 Couguar (P. ditcolor), is allowed by some zoologists and rejected by 

 others. 



Sir William Jardine describes as the Black Puma an animal about 

 33.1 inches long, without including the tail, which is about 13 inches, 

 and of which he gives a figure taken from a specimen brought in a 

 merchant vessel to Greenock. He gives as synonyms El Negro of 

 D'Azara and the Black Cat of America (Griffith's ' Synopsis '), both 

 with a note of interrogation. Sir William adopts Puma as a genus, 

 and gives the following species : P. concolor, P. nigra, P. Yaguarundi, 

 P. Eyra, P. Pajcrot, and P. chalybeata. Figures of P. Yaguarundi 

 and P. Pajerot are given in the ' Zoology of the Voyage of H. M. S. 

 Beagle,' edited by Mr. Darwin. 



II. TIOEBS. 



"Although there is but one species of Tiger, properly so called, the 

 Tiger-Cats, or those species of the genus Ptli* in which the tigerine 

 character predominates, may be also treated of under the title 

 before us. 



The Royal Tiger, Pdii Tigris, claims our first notice; and although 

 poets and poetical zoologists have joined to elevate the lion with his 

 majestic mane to the sovereignty, it may be doubted whether the 

 Tiger is not the type of the ferocious and blood-thirsty genus 

 Pdit. 



Some have thought that this species was but little known to the 

 ancients ; but, we think, with no sufficient grounds. The numerous 

 passages in which the word Tiijrit (riypn) occurs in Greek and Latin 

 authors leave little room for doubting this knowledge ; and Hyrcania, 

 with which it a so frequently associated by the Roman writers, is a 



ocality well suited to what we now know of its geographical 

 distribution. 



When Aristotle (' Hist. Anim.,' viii. 28), treating of hybrid animals 

 which spring from an intermixture of different races, says that 

 people pretend that the dogs of India are bred from the Tiger (TOW 

 rlypios) and a bitch, not indeed at the first union, but at the third, 

 we see no reason, considering the locality which he assigns to the 

 Tigris, and the opportunities which the conquests of Alexander gave 

 bim of knowing the animals of India, why the word should be 

 rendered otherwise than by Tiger in our present acceptation of the 

 term. " The tiger," writes Pliny (' Nat. Hist.,' viii. 18), " is produced 

 in Hyrcania and India ;" following this up with an allusion to the 

 'tremendous swiftness" of the animal, and the strong attachment 

 which the tigress, notwithstanding accidental exception, is known 

 to manifest for her cubs. Again (' Nat. Higt.' vi. 20), he notices the 

 Indian nations as abounding in wild tigers. Of course he does not 

 omit the story of the origin of the Indian dogs from the Tiger, and 

 the rejection of the two first litters as too ferocious, while the third 

 is taken and brought up. (' Nat. Hist.,' viii. 40). But further, it is 

 quite clear from the same authority, that the Tigris had been 

 exhibited at Rome, and that Pliny and others well knew the 

 distinction between that species and leopards and panthers. After 

 mentioning the last two, and referring to an ancient decree of the 

 senate that African beasts should not be imported, but stating that 

 the tribune Cneius Aufidius caused a plebiscitum to be passed which 

 permitted their importation for the Circensian games, he states the 

 numbers brought first by Scaurus, and then by Pompey the Great 

 and Augustus ; adding that Augustus was the first who showed a 

 tame tigress (tigrin) in a den at Rome, upou the dedication of the 

 Theatre of Marcellue, during the consulship of Q. Tubero and Fabius 

 Maximus, and that the emperor Claudius showed four together. 

 (' Nat Hist.,' viii. 17). Suetonius ( Aug.," xliii.) states that it was 

 the habit of Augustus, besides the exhibitions at the great spectacles, 

 to sUbw to the public uny rarity that was brought over, " ut rhiuo- 

 cerotem apud septa ; tigrim in scena ; anguem quinquaginta 

 cubitorum pro comitio : " and Dion remarks that the tigers (-riyptis) 

 first seen by the Romans, and as he thinks by the Greeks also, were 

 those sent by the Indians as gifts when they were suing for peace 

 from Augustus. The emperor Philip on one occasion exhibited ten 

 tigers, together with thirty-two elephants, ten elks, sixty lions, thirty 

 leopards, ten hysenus, one hippopotamus, one rhinoceros, forty wild 

 horses, twenty wild asses, and numbers of deer, goats, antelopes, and 

 other beasts ; the brutal exhibition being crowned by the mortal 

 combat of 2000 gladiators. 



Gordian III. also exhibited ten tigers, and they were present in 

 the shows of Antoninus and Elagabalus. Aurelian, in his triumph 

 over Zenobia, showed four, together with a giraffe, an elk, and other 

 rare animals. 



Oppian cannot be mistaken when he writes (' Cyneg.,' iii. 130) 



FlapSaAtfy Tf Boal, Kai riyptfs aio\6v(aroi ; 



for here we have leopards and tigers in the same line, and the 

 epithet cuoXoVwroj (having a variegated back) is quite applicable to 

 the latter. 



The Latin poets abound with allusions to the Tigris, that in most 

 instances can hardly be allotted to any animal but the Royal Tiger ; 

 for though Virgil in his fourth ' Georgic ' (1. 407), applies the epithet 

 ' atra ' (black) to ' tigris ' in the passage where Cyrene is warning 

 Aristasus as to the forms into which Proteus will transform himself, 

 the word evidently does not there allude to colour, but to ferocity. 

 In the fourth '^Eneid,' Dido, in her exclamation against ^Eneas, 

 says 



" Duris penult te cautibus horrens 



Caucasus, Ilyrcanaque admnrunt ubera tigres." 



The tigers of Bacchus may be considered more doubtful. In the 

 ' Gemmae et Sculpture) Antiquse ' there is a representation of a large 

 female Fdii with the thyrsus from a caruelian (corgnola), with the 

 superscription, ' Tigre di Bacho ; ' but though the figure generally 

 might pass for a Tiger, the tail of the animal is terminated by a 

 shaggy tuft, and no tiger's tail is. Claudian comes much nearer to 

 the mark where he describes lacchus as marching crowned with ivy, 

 and clad in the skin of the Parthian Tiger. When Virgil describes 

 Orpheus, as ' mulcentem tigres' as 'soothing tigers' (' Georg.' iv., 1. 

 510), and Horace, with nearly the same thought, addresses Mercury 



" Tu potes tigres comitesque sylvas 



Ducere " 



(' Carm.,' iii., ' Ode,' ii.) ; and again, in his epistle to the Pisos (' De 

 Arte PoeticA,' 1. 393), says of Orpheus 



" Dictus ab hoc Icnirc tigres, rabidosque Icones ; " 



they make the Tiger personify the greatest ferocity, and they 

 certainly could not have chosen a more apt representative. 



Martial speaks of the Tiger in the time of Titus and Domitiau. 

 ('Spect.,' Epig. 18, and lib. i., Epig. 105.) 



To conclude this branch of the subject, we shall advert to one 

 more literary proof, and one piece of pictorial evidence : and we 

 think that no doubt can exist that, although the Royal Tiger was 

 not so abundant in the Roman shows, particularly the earlier ones, 



