

470 \ARTETIES OF THE JAGTJAB. 



After four hours' navigation down the Orinoco we arrived 

 at the point of the bifurcation. Our resting place was on 

 the same beach of the Cassiquiare, where a few days pre- 

 viously our great dog had, as we believe, been carried oft 

 by the jaguars. All the endeavours of the Indians to dis- 

 cover any traces of the animal were fruitless. The cries of 

 the jaguars were heard during the whole night.* These 

 animals are very frequent in the tracts situated between 

 the Cerro Maraguaca, the Unturan, and the banks of the 

 Pamoni. There also is found that black species of tiger f 

 of which I saw some fine skins at Esmeralda. This animal 

 is celebrated for its strength and ferocity ; it appears to be 

 still larger than the common jaguar. The black spots are 

 scarcely visible on the dark-brown ground of its skin. The 

 Indians assert, that these tigers are very rare, that they 

 never mingle with the common jaguars, and that they " form 

 another race.' ' I believe that Prince Maximilian of Neuwied, 

 who has enriched American zoology by so many important 

 observations, acquired the same information farther to the 

 south, in the hot part of Brazil. Albino varieties of the 

 jaguar have been seen in Paraguay : for the spots of these 

 animals, which may be called the beautiful panthers of 

 America, are sometimes so pale, as to be scarcely distin- 

 guishable on a very white ground. In the black jaguars, on 

 the contrary, it is the colour of the ground which renders 

 the spots indistinct. It requires to reside long in those 

 countries, and to accompany the Indians of Esmeralda in 

 the perilous chace of the tiger, to decide with certainty upon 

 the varieties and the species. In all the mammiferae, and 

 particularly in the numerous family of the apes, we ought, 



* This frequency of large jaguars is somewhat remarkable in a country 

 destitute of cattle. The tigers of the Upper Orinoco are far less bounti- 

 fully supplied with prey than those of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres and 

 the Llanos of Caracas, which are covered with herds of cattle. More 

 than four thousand jaguars are killed annually in the Spanish colonies, 

 several of them equalling the mean size of the royal tiger of Asia. Two 

 thousand skins of jaguars were formerly exported annually from Buenoi 

 Ayres alone. 



) Gmelin, in his ' Synonyma,' seems to confound this animal, ucdei 

 the name of Felis discolor, witli the great American lion., (Felis concol'r,} 

 which is very different from the puma of the Andes of Quito. 



