THE JAGUAE AND THE PUMA. 73 



horse or bullock witli tlie greatest facility, carrying it to the 

 "woods ; overcoming, at the same time, the resistance occasioned 

 by another bullock or horse being attached to the carcase." 



These animals are similar in their tastes to the other powerful 

 members of the cat family, for if th.ey once happen to eat human 

 flesh, they prefer it to all other food, and certain individual jaguars 

 become in consequence as great a pest as the man-eating tigers 

 and panthers of Asia. While Azara was in Paraguay, six men 

 had been devoured by these creatures, two being carried off from 

 the midst of their companions, who were warming themselves by 

 the fire. 



The woodcutters and Indians frequently meet their death at 

 the paws of these brutes. Senor Luiz Yalverde, the State 

 Surveyor of Yucatan, estimates that during his tenure of ofl&ce, 

 for the fourteen years prior to 1878,' eight human lives had 

 fallen a prey to the rapacity of jaguars for every jaguar that 

 had been killed. Again we read that in 1865, when the French 

 military authorities tried to construct an overland route from 

 Oampeche to Belize, they lost eleven soldiers and twenty-eight 

 Indian labourers in the attempt, all of whom came by their deaths 

 during a jaguar-hunt, in the presence of their companions, or 

 disappeared in the swamps infested by the animals. 



Mr. Darwin teUs us that it was not many years ago since a very 

 large jaguar found his way into a church in Santa Fe, Soon after 

 a corpulent padre entered, and was at once killed by the animal : 

 his coadjutor, wondering what had detained the padre, went to 

 look after him, and also fell a victim to the jaguar ; a third priest 

 then sought them, and the creature made at him also, but he was 

 fortunately able to elude the attack, and, dodging the animal from 

 pillar to post, happily made his escape. The beast was ultimately 

 destroyed by being shot from a corner of the building, which was 

 unroofed for the purpose. 



The energy of their movements, combined with their agility, 

 fearlessness, and power of fighting when even mortally wounded, 

 almost until they take their last gasp, constitute the jaguars 

 anything but pleasant antagonists. 



The crocodiles that swarm in the rivers of South America wage 



