A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 85 



and had killed a couple of cows and a young steer. The 

 hunters had followed him, but he had made his escape, 

 and for the time being had abandoned the neighborhood. 

 In these marshes each jaguar had a wide irregular range 

 and travelled a good deal, perhaps only passing a day or 

 two in a given locality, perhaps spending a week where 

 game was plentiful. Jaguars love the water. They 

 drink greedily and swim freely. In this country they 

 rambled through the night across the marshes and 

 prowled along the edges of the ponds and bayous, catch- 

 ing the capybaras and the caymans ; for these small pond 

 caymans, the jacare-tinga, form part of their habitual 

 food, and a big jaguar when hungry will attack and kill 

 large caymans and crocodiles if he can get them a few 

 yards from the water. On these marshes the jaguars 

 also followed the peccary herds; it is said that they al- 

 ways strike the hindmost of a band of the fierce little 

 wild pigs. Elsewhere they often prey on the tapir. If 

 in timber, however, the jaguar must kill it at once, for 

 the squat, thick-skinned, wedge-shaped tapir has no re- 

 spect for timber, as Colonel Rondon phrased it, and 

 rushes with such blind, headlong speed through and 

 among branches and trunks that if not immediately 

 killed it brushes the jaguar off, the claws leaving long 

 raking scars in the tough hide. Cattle are often killed. 

 The jaguar will not meddle with a big bull ; and is cau- 

 tious about attacking a herd accompanied by a bull ; but 

 it will at times, where wild game is scarce, kill every 

 other domestic animal. It is a thirsty brute, and if it 

 kills far from water will often drag its victim a long 

 distance toward a pond or stream ; Colonel Rondon had 



