VARIOUS PAWS ii 



When the former walks, its claws are lifted, so that 

 their points do not touch the ground. Why ? I 

 have no information, but I know that it is not con- 

 tent with a vegetarian diet, like its black relative, 

 but hankers after sheep and goats, and I guess that 

 its murderous thoughts flow down its nerves to those 

 keen claws. It reminds me of a man clenching his 

 fist unconsciously when he thinks of the liar who has 

 slandered him. 



But what ages of concentration on the thought 

 and practice of assassination must have been re- 

 quired to perfect that most awful weapon in Nature, 

 the paw of a tiger, or, indeed, of any cat, for they 

 are all of one pattern. The sharpened flint of the 

 savage has become the scimitar of Saladin, keeping 

 the keenness of its edge in a velvet sheath and flashing 

 out only on the field of battle. Compare that paw 

 with the foot of a dog, and you will, perhaps, see 

 with me that the servility and pliancy of the slave 

 of man has usurped a place in his esteem which is 

 not its due. The cat is much the nobler animal. 

 Dogs, with wolves, jackals, and all of their kin, love 

 to fall upon their victim in overwhelming force, like a 

 rascally mob, and bite, tear, and worry until the life 

 has gone out of it ; the tiger, rushing single-handed, 

 with a fearful challenge, on the gigantic buffalo, 

 grasps its nose with one paw and its shoulder with the 

 other, and has broken its massive neck in a manner 

 so dexterous and instantaneous that scarcely two 

 sportsmen can agree about how the thing is done. 



