The Heptarchy of the Cats. 4 1 



stranger very little leisure for misunderstanding their in- 

 tentions. 



The tiger, therefore, deserves to be held in respect, as a 

 model wild beast, for he knows his station, and keeps it, 

 doing the work that Nature has given him to do with all 

 his might Life has only one end for him, the enjoyment 

 of it, and to this he gives the whole of his magnificent 

 energies. Endowed with superb capabilities for taking 

 lives and preserving his own, he exercises them to the 

 utmost in this one direction, without ever forgetting for an 

 instant that he is only a huge cat, or flying in the face of 

 Providence by wishing to be thought anything else. One 

 result of this is that the tiger finds no place in folk-lore 

 outside of India and (in a demoniacal form) Cathay. There 

 was, it is true, a stream somewhere in Fairyland that turned 

 donkeys into " tigers," but the name is used here only as 

 the extreme antithesis of the inoffensive ass. 



LEOPARD. 



Owing to the mystery in heraldry about the identity of 

 the Leopard, and the confusion in myths and folk-lore, not 

 only between this animal and the panther — which is allow- 

 able, seeing that science is still unable to decide the question 

 of their variety — but even between the leopard, lion,^ and 

 tiger, the poets have found in it (whether we call it libbard, 

 pard, pardel) a thoroughly suitable subject for poetical 

 treatment. Having no definite indi\-iduality, it can be 

 treated very liberally as to manners, appearance, and attri- 

 butes, and there is little margin for criticism of the liberties 

 which poets may take. 



They have, therefore, this justification for their " leopards," 

 that the sources from which they usually draw their zoolo- 



' Thus Broome makes Achilles terrific in "a leopard's spotted 

 spoils." 



