58 THE TOWER MENAGERIE. 
more formidable beasts. So uniformly indeed has he 
been met with in the train of the Lion, that many early 
writers, determined to find a reason for every thing, laid 
it down as a settled fact that the Caracal, equally with 
the Jackal, although in a different manner, was the 
Lion’s purveyor; that he accompanied that terrible 
animal in the pursuit of his prey; pointed it out to 
him by means of his more delicate nostril and piercing 
sight; and, when his royal master had finished his meal, 
received a portion of the flesh in reward for his good 
and loyal service. But the greater part. of this fanciful 
tale is now known to have had its origin only in the 
imagination of men who had caught a glimpse of the 
real truth, and made up for the want of accurate obser- 
vation by the invention of a theory almost as fabulous 
as the stories of the ancients, which attributed to the 
same animal such wonderful powers of sight as to pierce 
even through stone walls. He follows, it is true, in the 
traces of the Lion; but, far from associating with him in 
the pursuit of game, he ventures not, any more than the 
other beasts of the forest, to trust himself within reach of 
his paw. His object is solely to satiate his appetite upon 
the remains of the mangled carcases which the Lion may 
leave; consequently the latter might with much greater 
truth and propriety be regarded as the purveyor of the 
Caracal, who depends perhaps more for his subsistence 
upon the food thus provided for him, than upon that 
which he can procure by the exercise of his own powers 
or sagacity. He frequently, however, indulges his native 
ferocity in petty ravages on the smaller and more timid 
quadrupeds, such as hares and rabbits: birds also form 
a favourite object of his attacks, and in pursuit of them 
