30 The Poets Beasts. 



aims and results, considering the possibilities of such 

 subjects. 



With regard, however, to this class of beautiful and 

 dangerous beasts, it is due to the poets to point out that 

 antiquity used " pard " for the cheetah ; that tradition made 

 the "leopard" a hybrid between pards and lions; that the 

 " mythical panthera," of European fancy, was first imagined 

 somewhere about the Reynard-the-Fox Age, and has sur- 

 vived as the panther of modern times ; that when heraldry 

 commenced in earnest, the leopard was merely the lion in 

 certain attitudes ; that early writers mixed up tigers with 

 leopards and panthers as part of the emblematic retinue 

 of the Greek gods ; that modern zoologists are still divided 

 as to the identity or variety of the leopard and panther ; 

 that America calls the puma both "panther" and "moun- 

 tain lion ; " that in Ceylon the panther is called the " tiger ; " 

 that in the South African Colonies the leopard is called 

 " tiger " also ; and that all over India the same native names 

 are hopelessly bewildered among not only panthers, leopards, 

 and cheetahs, but also extended to hyaenas. 



TIGER. 



The Tiger — " the deep-mouthed tiger, dread of the brown 

 man," as Morris calls it — is a very frequent image with the 

 poets, whether "holding its solitude in desert dark and 

 rude," — "crouching to await its helpless prey," — "darting 

 fierce, impetuous, on the prey his glance has doomed," — 

 or "returning to its den before the sun may see it." But 

 it has nevertheless only one aspect, namely, of ruthless 

 voracity. To this every other feature is made to contribute. 

 The "tiger's plunge," from its impetuosity, is used as if 

 denoting a malignity of purpose greater than when the 

 royal lion does the same thing ; and when it lies in 

 ambush — a particularly leonine trick — the stratagem is con- 



