THE JAGUAR AND THE PUMA. 75 



mid-winter, and ransacks the neighbouring woods in search of 

 animals and vegetable products, which she would disdain to 

 touch at another season of the year. She mounts to the topmost 

 branches of the prickly caucho-trees to rob the nests of the crested 

 pigeon, tears bats from their retreats in hollow stumps, and 

 musk-rats from their deep burrows, and even stays her hunger 

 with monkey figs and the oily fruit of the myris palm. All 

 running and climbing quadrupeds of the larger species she pursues 

 with a headlong rage that often defeats its object, and gets her 

 nothing but a fall from a disagreeable height, or an involuntary 

 immersion in a quagmire for her trouble. 



" The jaguar is not exclusively nocturnal, and has often visited 

 the cattle-yards of the mountain-farmers during the siesta hour ; 

 but in the lowlands where food is plentiful, it is probable that he 

 prolongs his own siesta through the larger part of the day. 

 Miles away from the haunts of man, where only the voice of the 

 flamingo or the splash of the swamp-otter reaches his ear, he 

 rests in the shade, careless of the insects that may buzz around 

 him but cannot penetrate his fur — careless, too, of the miasmatic 

 exhalations which animals breathe with an impunity that has 

 remained enigmatical to the ablest physiologists^ There he is 

 safe ; in the vast and intricate cordero thickets, the caucho groves 

 and cane brakes, he finds retreats into which his hereditary foe 

 can never follow him. Such swamps are the reservations of 

 Nature, to which she admits only her favourites — strongholds of 

 chaos against the inroads of civilization, and the last refuge of all 

 beasts " that yield to man but will not be his slaves." 



Jaguars are rather, noisy cats, and their cry is frequently 

 heard at night during certain seasons of the year, and especially 

 before bad weather, their snarling growl being rather an un- 

 pleasant but an unmistakable sound. In the swampy regions that 

 are viewed from the peaks of the Tiger Mountains, which, accord- 

 ing to a superstition of the Yucatan Indians, is the assembly- 

 ground of the jaguar nation, where on moonlight nights they con- 

 vene their meeting, the feline symphonies which often emanate 

 from this territory are said to create a veritable pandemonium of 

 cacophonous sounds which cannot be appreciated until once heard. 



