THE JAGUAR. 239 



but it is very improbable that so expert a swimmer would wait 

 to catch fish with the patience of an angler. 



So long as the jaguar can obtain his customary meals readily, 

 it is indolent and cowardly, secreting itself in the depths of the 

 forests or in caverns, and is scared by the most trifling causes 5 

 but when emboldened by hunger it will attack man himself. 

 D'Azara says, that during his residence at Paraguay, the jaguars 

 killed six men ; two of whom were even seized in the night, 

 while sitting by a blazing fire, and carried thence by these 

 animals. Sonnini mentions, that while journeying through the 

 extensive forests of Guiana, he and his party were much 

 annoyed by a jaguar following them in their route, for two 

 successive nights, evading, meanwhile, all their efforts to destroy 

 him. They kept up large blazing fires to fright him away; 

 and he at length took himself off, after uttering a horrid howl 

 of disappointment. Mr. Mawe says, that when once the jaguar 

 has tasted human flesh it will hunt for it again. 



" It has been observed, in the Jardin des Plantes, that some 

 of the carnivorous animals are most healthy, and most inclined 

 to increase in bulk, if fed only once in several days. The jaguar 

 is remarkable for the excess of this peculiar power, and will 

 eat at a single meal sufficient to support him for a week. In 

 the wild solitudes of which he is a native, he probably is equally 

 abstemious during the time of repletion."* A jaguar at the 

 above establishment in Paris, was of exceedingly mild temper, 

 and particularly fond of licking the hands of those with whom 

 he was familiar; as was also remarkably the case with one 

 formerly in the Tower of London. 



THE BLACK JAGUAR. 



Black Tiger. 



" Sometimes," as Cuvier observes, " individual specimens of 

 the common jaguar (Felis onfa) are found black, whose rings, 

 of a deeper hue, are only perceptible in a particular light." 

 * Entomological Magazine, vol. iv. (1836), p. 30. 



