32 History of Nature. [Boox VII t. 



Eyes. It is said that all Quadrupeds are wonderfully enticed 

 by the Smell of Panthers ; but their Sternness of Counte- 

 nance carrieth Terror with it, and therefore they hide their 

 Heads, and when they have attracted other Beasts within 

 reach by their sweet Smell, they fly upon and seize them. 

 Some report that they have a Mark on their Shoulder resem- 

 bling the Moon, growing to the full and decreasing into 

 Horns as she doth. In all this Race of Wild Beasts, now they 

 call the Males Varise and Pardi ; and there is great Abun- 

 dance of them in Africa and Syria. Some distinguish be- 

 tween Leopards and Panthers, by the Panthers being white ; 

 and as yet I know no other Difference between them. There 

 was an old Act of the Senate, forbidding that any Panthers 

 of Africa should be brought into Italy. Against this Edict, 

 Cn. Aufidius, a Tribune of the People, produced a Bill to the 

 People, which permitted, that for the sake of the Circensian 

 Games, they might be brought over. Scaurus was the first 

 who in his ^Edileship exhibited of different Sorts 150(Variae) 

 in all. After him, Pompey the Great brought out 410 ; Divus 

 Augustus, 420; who also in the Year that Q. Tubero and 

 Fabius Maximus were Consuls, on the fourth Day before the 

 Nones of May, at the Dedication of the Theatre ofMarcellus, 

 was the first of all those that shewed at Rome a tame Tiger 

 in a Cage ; but .Divus Claudius shewed four at once. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Of the Nature of the Tiger : of Camels, of the Camelopard, 

 and when it was first seen at Rome. 



TIGERS are produced in Hyrcania 1 and India. This 

 Animal is dreadful for Swiftness, and most of all this is seen 

 when it is taken : for her Litter, of which there is always a 



1 Fells Tigris. LINN. The Royal Tiger. Some have supposed that 

 this species was but little known to the ancients ; but we think with no 

 sufficient grounds. The numerous passages in which the word tigris 

 occurs in Greek and Latin authors, leave little room for doubting their 

 knowledge of the animal ; and Hyrcania, with which it is so frequently 

 associated by the latter, is a locality well suited to what we know of its 



