76 NATURAL H18TV&Y. 



THE CHEETAH.* 



The Hunting Leopard, or Cheetah, is the last member of the Cat family, and is distinguished from 

 the foregoing forms of the group by its long legs, the peculiar form of the flesh tooth of t-he upper jaw, 

 and by the fact that its claws are less perfectly retractile than those of other cats, owing to the excessive 

 length of the elastic ligaments. So much struck have some observers been with the variation of the 

 Cheetah from the ordinary feline type, that it has been named Cyncelurus, or Dog-Cat, a very inappro- 

 priate name, as the animal is a Cat all over, as any one will see who will take the trouble to look at 

 the specimens in the Zoological Gardens. No Dog has that round face, long tail, and supercilious, 

 almost arrogant, expression. 



The Cheetah is about four feet and half long from tip of snout to root of tail. The latter appendage 

 is two feet and a half in length, and the height of the animal at the shoulder two feet and a 

 half to two and three-quarters. The hide is of a bright reddish fawn-colour, and covered with 

 numerous black spots, which are single, and not arrayed in rosettes, as in the Leopard, Jaguar, 



Ocelot, &c. The appearance of the face is very characteristic, 

 owing to a black stripe which passes down the cheek in a sort 

 of sigmoid curve, from the corner of the eye to the angle of the 

 mouth. The tail has black spots and a black tip. The body is 

 slender and small in the loins like a Greyhound's. 



There are three varieties of this animal. One, the maneless 

 Cheetah, is confined to Africa ; another, the maned Cheetah, is 

 found all over South-west Asia, and is distinguished from the 

 first-named variety by its longer hair, and by the presence of a 

 distinct though short mane, which, however, is more like the 

 cheek-tufts (we must not call them whiskers, though they 

 SKULL OF CHEETAH. exactly resemble them, as that name is appropriated to the 



long vibrissse) of the Tiger or Lynx than the mane of the 



Lion. The third variety is the woolly Cheetah, which differs so much from the other two, as to be 

 usually separated as a distinct species (Felis lanea). Its hair is woolly, and the spots and face-mark 

 light brown instead of black. The hind legs are unusually short. It is a native of South Africa. 



Mr. Jerdon says, that " this animal was the original PantJier and Leopardus of the ancients, who 

 considered (with the Arabs of the present day in North Africa) that it was a breed between the Lion 

 and the Pard." Possibly it was this animal to which Jeremiah alluded, when he said, " Can the 

 Ethiopian change his skin, or the Leopard his spots V For, although rare, it is still found in Palestine. 

 Cahon Tristram says, " A few still haunt the neighbourhood of Tabor and the hills of Galilee. In 

 Gilead it is more common, and a sheikh there presented me with three skins of the Cheetah, shot 

 by his people." 



It frequents open plains, and hunts by day, in correspondence with which habits it has a circular 

 a-nd not an elliptical pupil to the eye. 



The Cheetah is a half-domesticated animal ; we say half-domesticated, because, although it is used 

 regularly in hunting, yet it is never properly tamed, and always has to be, as it were, gulled into doing 

 its work. The following account of the manner in which it is used in Indian sport is given by Mr. 

 Jerdon f : 



" ' On a hunting party,' says Buchanan Hamilton, ' the Cheetah is carried on a cart, hooded, and 

 when the game is raised the hood is taken off. The Cheetah then leaps down, sometimes on the 

 opposite side to its prey, and pursues the Antelope. If the latter is near the cart, the Cheetah 

 springs forward with a surpassing velocity, perhaps exceeding that which any other quadruped 

 possesses. This great velocity is not unlike the sudden spring by which the Tiger seizes its prey, but 

 it is often continued for three or four hundred yards. If within this distance the Cheetah does not seize 

 its prey, he stops, but apparently more from anger or disappointment than from fatigue, for his 

 attitude is fierce, and he has been known immediately afterwards to pursue with equal rapidity another 

 Antelope that happened to be passing. If the game is at too great a distance when the Cheetah's eyes 



* Felis jubata. f "Mammals of India." 



