50 The Poets Beasts. 



sovereigns, and the powers of life and death. At the head 

 of fierce dans, they often defy the central authority, and, 

 retiring within their own demesnes, maintain there almost 

 royal state. Such are the puma, jaguar, leopard, and 

 panther. The two latter are to the East what the others 

 are to the West, and their lives, whether we consider the 

 kindliness of Nature to them in their beauty and strength, 

 or their strange immunity from harm, are equally to be 

 admired and envied. They live, it is true, within the empire 

 of the lion, but only as, in the days of the Heptarchy, the 

 Mercian or the Northumbrian prince would have called 

 himself "within the realm" of the Bretwalda; as in the 

 early days of France the Dukes of Soissons or Burgundy 

 acknowledged their vassalage to Paris ; or, earlier still, only 

 as Acarnacia or Locris confessed the supremacy of Sparta. 

 There is respect on both sides, and therefore a large 

 measure of peace within the satrapies of the Cats." 



Though it cannot claim an equal dignity with any of the 

 seven animals I have grouped under the Heptarchy, the 

 Lynx is distinctly of the aristocracy. Moreover, it is a 

 delightful wild beast, savage, carnivorous, and something of 

 an assassin, as wild beasts should be — and all the more 

 delightful for being European. We have so few picturesque 

 ferine touches in the domesticated Nature of our civilised 

 Continent that the lynx could hardly be spared. There is 

 the wolf, of course — but the wolf is, perhaps, too serious an 

 animal. Failing sheep, it will content itself with children. 

 There is the bear too, but the bear is seldom in the way. 

 Its habits are retiring ; its diet, by preference, innocent. 

 So that it cannot be considered a disagreeable addition to 

 European Fauna. The lynx comes midway between the 



