The Heptarchy of the Cats. 35 



His coucbant watch, as one who chose his ground 

 Whence rushing he might surest seize them both 

 Gripped in each paw " {Dryden), 



kills for killing's sake, " roams all abroad and grimly slays," 

 and continues to slaughter even when dying itself. 



" As a grim tiger whom the torrent's might 

 Surprises in some parched ravine at night 

 Turns, even in drowning, on the wretched flocks 

 Swept with him in that snow-flood from the rocks, 

 And to the last, devouring on his way, 

 Bloodies the stream he has no power to stay." 



Moore's zoology, however, is, as a rule, of the wildest 

 kind ; but it is strange that the notorious fact — notorious 

 at any rate from the days of the Ramayana and before 

 Homer — that in presence of a common danger tigers and 

 sheep lay aside their mutual antipathies, should not have 

 made his metaphor move more cautiously. I have myself 

 known of a tiger and a herd of cattle on the same half- 

 acre of ground during a flood, and the tiger seemed the 

 most ill at ease of all the company. Thus accurate Tenny- 

 son, " Gareth and Lynette," has, the " lion and stoat isled 

 together in time of flood ; " and Leyden, in the " Scenes of 

 Infancy " — 



" When the storm through Indian forests runs, 



Floats far and loud the hoarse, discordant yell 

 Of ravening pards, which harmless crowd the dell. 



The barbarous tiger whets his fang no more 

 To lap, with torturing pause, his victim's gore. 

 Curb'd of their rage, hysenas gaunt are tame, 

 And shrink, begirt with all-devouring flame." 



Its appearance, the poets say, commands no such re- 

 spect from other beasts as the lion's is said to do — though 

 Livingstone says those who meet a lion will be much dis- 



