The Heptai'chy of the Cats. 47 



resident of India who has ever camped out in the jungle 

 where leopards are, or has lived in " the hills," has had some 

 tragic experience of this mania of the leopard for dogs. 



In about the same degree, but obviously for very different 

 reasons, the monkey takes the most profound interest in 

 the leopard, and when one is afoot the four-handed folk 

 follow him as closely as they dare, shaking the branches in 

 their absurd rage, chattering furiously at their enemy, and 

 making faces at him. Sometimes, however, the leopard 

 stops abruptly and glares at them, and the wretched 

 monkeys, gathering overhead, get so excited in their demon- 

 strations that one of their number is pretty sure to lose its 

 balance and tumble into the leopard's mouth. 



A tradition was once widely current that the panther was 

 sweetly-scented — says Dryden, "the panther's breath was 

 ever famed for sweet " — and that this fragrance was so fas- 

 cinating to some small animals that it enticed them to their 

 death in the jaws of the aromatic beast.^ It is a fact, how- 

 ever, that the panther itself is peculiarly sensible to perfumes, 

 and among other instances is one of undeniable authen- 

 ticity of a panther being tamed with lavender water. 



A part of this tradition is no doubt the existence of a 

 mythic animal called the " panthera," of which the bones 

 were of great lustre and exquisite odour. One of the 

 three "rarities" which Reynard the Fox pretended he 

 had got for the Queen was a comb. " This comb was 

 made of the bone of a noble beast called Panthera, which 

 lives between the greater India and earthly Paradise. He 

 is so beautiful that he partakes of all the loveliest hues 



1 Spenser thus alludes to another tradition — the power of the panther 

 to fascinate, lilce the snake, by sight — 



" The panther, knowing that his spotted hyde 



Doth please all beasts, but that his looks them fray, 

 Within a bush his dreadful head doth hide, 



To let them gaze whylst he on them may prey." 



