176 



THE CAT TRIBE. 



it prefers the borders of the forest, the shady 

 banks of the great rivers and the standing 

 waters ailjacent to them, where it lies in wait 

 for the animals which come to drink. It 

 climbs trees expertly even in pursuit of mon- 

 keys, swims across the broadest rivers, and 

 jumps with ease over high hedges and walls. 

 Although it prefers horses and mules, tapirs, 

 peccaries, and capybaras, yet it does not 

 despise rats and agoutis, and knows how to 

 get the better of the armadillos in spite of 

 their armour. Birds seem to be not less 

 tasty to it than the large lizards; it will 

 even attack crocodiles and alligators, is capital 

 at fishing with its paw, like our cats, and it 

 can dexterously empty the carapace of the 

 large turtles, which it turns on their backs 

 when they come to the sandy shores to lay 

 their eggs. Only the oxen of the Pampas 

 can withstand its onset; but these, it must be 

 remembered, were introduced by man, and do 

 not belong to the original native fauna of 

 America. 



With reference to man the jaguar behaves 

 like the large felines of the Old World. By 

 day it mostly leaves him unmolested, by 

 night attacks and devours him. It flees 

 from him in those parts in which it has 

 become acquainted with firearms; but seeks 

 him out in order to make him its prey when 

 it knows from experience that it runs no 

 great danger. There are " man-eaters " in 

 America as in India, and it is always the old 

 males that devote themselves specially to 

 human prey. It appears, however, that these 

 attacks on the human species are rarer in 

 America than in India, 



Besides the modes of hunting adopted in 

 the Old World, others, perhaps more effective, 

 are carried on in the New against the jaguar. 

 Foremost among these is hunting with arrows 

 poisoned with curara, and projected by means 

 of a blow-pipe. The Indians who carry on 

 this mode of hunting march out with a pack 

 of courageous dogs. The jaguar when bayed 

 by the dogs at once takes to a tree, and from 



this secure station keeps watch on its four- 

 footed assailants, paying little heed to the 

 small arrows with which the Indians prick 

 its skin and cause it no more irdin than a 

 thorn would, although in a few minutes they 

 paralyse it. In other cases heroic Indians 

 will advance boldly against it, their left arm 

 merely protected from its bites by a sheep- 

 skin, while they transfix its breast with a 

 lance or a large dagger. The Gauchos throw 

 the lasso round it and strangle it, dragging 

 it along as Achilles did the dead body of 

 Hector. But for this mode of hunting an 

 excellently trained high-spirited stallion is 

 required, for at the sight of the terrible 

 ravager most horses tremble in all their 

 limbs, and remain rooted to the spot as if 

 paralysed. It is needless to go into further 

 details, for all that we have said of the tiger 

 and panther can also be applied to the 

 jaguar. Like the panther it does not fear 

 fire, and like the lion it is said to prefer the 

 coloured man to the white. 



One would never think of comparing the 

 Cougar or Puma [Fclis concolor\ fig. 8i, to 

 the lion, if it were not that the coat of this 

 American feline is without markings. The 

 general colour of this coat, however, is some- 

 what different from that of the lion, inclining 

 more to olive- or grayish-green. With the 

 exception of this uniformly coloured coat, 

 which has no trace of either spots or stripes, 

 everything is different in this so-called 

 American lion. The head, which in the lion 

 appears large and broad, is relatively small in 

 the puma; the profile is not straight, but bent 

 like that of a cat; the body is slender, long, 

 and well-proportioned. The mane is wanting, 

 and so also are the tuft and spine on the tail. 



The puma, in fact, shares with the majority 

 of the American felines, a rather longish 

 form of body and short legs. The fact that 

 the young are spotted and striped at birth, 

 like those of the lion, proves that the uni- 

 formly coloured coat is a later acquisition. 



The small head, elegant in outline, is 



