The Heptarchy of the Cats. 45 



ing about of large mirrors, when out after panthers, in such 

 scenes as they inhabit would be a cumbrous matter — 



" Fierce from his lair springs forth the speckled pard, 

 Thirsting for blood and eager to destroy ; 

 The huntsman flies, but to his flight alone 

 Confides not : at convenient distance fix'd, 

 A polish'd mirror stops in full career 

 The furious brute ; he there his image views : 

 Spots against spots with rage improving glow. 

 Another pard his bristly whiskers curls, 

 Grins as he grins, fierce menacing, and wide 

 Distends his op'ning jaws ; himself against 

 Himself oppos'd, and with dread vengeance arm'd. 

 The huntsman, now secure, with fatal aim 

 Directs his pointed spear, by which transfix'd 

 He dies, and with him dies the rival shade." 



The poets, in fact, divide their leopard into two (as many 

 sportsmen do for the sake of augmenting their trophies) so 

 as to seem to be talking of more than one animal, reserving 

 the leopard to convey ideas of grace without undue ferocity, 

 and the panther for ferocity that even personal beauty does 

 not condone. It is a " bearded " beast of " panther-peopled 

 solitudes " (Shelley), that " howls " in the wilderness (Camp- 

 bell), and dies of the sirocco in African deserts (Darwin). 

 And, indeed, in Nature, it is by no means a mere plaything. 

 For the " panther " — by which name Oriental sportsmen call 

 the larger specimens or, as some zoologists affirm, the larger 

 species of leopard — is very often a man-eater. And this not 

 from the necessities of decrepitude, as with the tiger, but 

 from choice. For the panther frequently enters huts to 

 carry off an inmate, though the village cattle, past which 

 it had come, offered a less perilous capture. Its strength 

 is surprising, for it can break the neck of full-grown cattle, 

 and carry sheep over a wall seven feet in height. When 

 attacked, it is, in the opinion of many sportsmen, quite as 

 formidable as the royal wearer of the stripes. It feeds only 



