192 



HUNTING ADVENTURES. 



THE JAGUAR. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



HUNTING THE JAGUAR. 



HE Jaguar is the largest and most formicLole 

 among the Cats of the New World, in the warmer 

 regions of which he exercises the same cruel 

 tyranny as the Lions, and Tigers, and the Leo- 

 pards, of the burning climates of the Old. He 

 appears to be almost universally spread over the southern division 

 of the American continent from Paraguay to Guiana : but there 

 is no satisfactory proof of his having been observed to the north 

 of the Isthmus of Panama. In the neighborhood of inhabited 

 places he is daily becoming more and more rare, the ravages 

 which he commits upon the flocks, and the high price that is 

 given for his skin, forming a double incentive to his destruction. 

 His habits and manners are almost precisely the same as those of 

 the other large animals of his tribe ; but he is spoken of as even 

 more indolent and cowardly. Like them he generally watches 

 for his prey in a concealed ambush, whence he darts upon it 

 unawares, bearing it at once to the earth by his great musculai 



