THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
tip, and 150 to 175 pounds in weight, but has a bulkier body, 
bigger head, shorter and more massive limbs, and shorter tail; 
hence, while less active and supple, it is perhaps more powerful 
than the leopard, and certainly is stronger than the puma. 
The ground color varies from the yellowish gray seen in arid 
Paraguay to almost red in the steaming equatorial swamps, 
‘ while in the lower Orinoco Valley deep brown and black ones 
are common; but there is only one species. The coat is every- 
where spotted with black, not in the leopard’s hollow rosettes, 
THE JAGUAR. 
but forming variable and irregular groups, each group always 
inclosing a black central spot. 
The jaguar is most at home, perhaps, in the half-flooded 
forests of the Amazon and Orinoco basins, where it necessa- 
rily spends much of its time in trees; but it abounds in the open 
country south of Brazil, especially along the reedy margins 
of the rivers. Azara™ treats the animal with great fullness 
of information, and says that it was so plentiful in the La 
Plata Valley when the Spaniards began settling there, that two 
thousand a year were killed. It ascends the eastern foothills of 
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