HABITS OF THE JAGUAR 
the Andes, is to be found northward throughout the warmer 
parts of Central America and Mexico into Texas, and once 
wandered eastward into the woodlands of Arkansas and Louisi- 
ana, but that was long ago. It is hard to see why it did not 
cross the Mississippi. Black jaguars are reputed to be much 
more savage than others, but this belief is not supported by 
facts; and Tschudi remarks that the Indians, at least those of 
Peru, think every black animal stronger or wickeder than light- 
colored ones. 
All accounts agree that where other food is plentiful men 
have little reason to dread an unprovoked attack, and that 
near civilization the jaguar as a rule is shy and gounts and 
timid. Nevertheless, a jaguar when hungry is not Habits. 
only likely to leap on any human being — who, to his mind, is, 
of course, only a sort of animal which is rather hard to under- 
stand, but is good to eat — falling in his way, but will some- 
times haunt a traveling company for days. In this and in 
other traits, as well as in breeding habits, the jaguar resembles 
the cougar, which ranges over the same territory. The In- 
dians told Wallace that when one was met on a lonely path, 
the only safe way was to keep a bold front; if a man turned to 
run, the jaguar was likely to jump on him. In the Amazonian 
wilderness these beasts have always been as much of a menace 
as are leopards in the interior of Africa. Early chronicles tell 
of places where the Indians made their huts in villages each 
surrounded by a high palisade as a defense against “‘tigres”’; 
and Im Thurn ® relates that even now the forest tribes in the 
interior of Guiana sleep in hammocks hung high enough above 
the ground to be out of reach of the jaguar’s spring, and build 
fires around the trees to which the hammock ropes are tied. 
Innumerable instances of bold attacks on sleeping men, even 
when in closed huts or boats, occur in the older literature of 
our Tropics. Mission stations have had to be abandoned to 
escape inglorious martyrdom by both priests and converts. 
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