ORDER CARNASSIER. 459 



formidable beast, two of whom were at the time before a 

 large fire. 



The central spot and short tail of the Jaguar will, with 

 but little observation, soon enable any one to distinguish 

 that transatlantic species from those of the old world, how- 

 ever confused, to which it is nearly allied, and to which we 

 shall now proceed. 



We shall treat of the Panther and the Leonard conjointly, 

 necessarily so indeed, as the distinctness of the two on the 

 one hand, or the identity of both subject only to variety on 

 the other, seems still in some degree problematical. 



The history, says our author, in his Ossemens Fossiles, 

 of the great Cats with round spots of the Old World, is 

 more difficult to elucidate than that of the Jaguar, on ac- 

 count of their mutual resemblance, and of the vague manner 

 in which authors have spoken of them. 



The Greeks knew one of these from the time of Homer, 

 which they named Pardalis, as Menelaus is said in the 

 Iliad, to have covered himself with the spotted skin of this 

 animal. This they compared, on account of its strength 

 and its cruelty to the Lion, and represented as having its 

 skin varied with spots. Its name even was synonymous 

 with spotted. The Greek translators of the Scriptures used 

 the name Pardalis, as synonymous with Namer, which 

 word, with a slight modification, signifies the Panther, at 

 present, among the Arabians. 



The name Pardalis gave place among the Romans to those 

 of Panthera and Varia. These are the words they used 

 during the two first ages, whenever they had occasion to 

 translate the Greek passages which mentioned the Pardalis, 

 or when they themselves mentioned this animal. 



They sometimes used the word Pardus, either for Pardalis, 

 or for Namer. Pliny even says, that Pardus signified the 

 male of Panthera, or Varia. 



So reciprocally the Greeks translated Panthera by the 



Vol. II, 2 I 



