THE JAGUAR AND THE PUMA. 77 



sierra. Moonliglit nights seem to make ttem restless ; they prowl 

 about as if troubled by some unsatisfied want, or promenade on 

 the roof to the serious detriment of the weatherboards." 



A full-grown and beautiful specimen of a jaguar, which had 

 been purchased in 1866 by the agents of the Zoological Gardens 

 of Marseilles, was being placed on board a French gun-boat, ia Belle 

 Rhone, in the harbour of Sisal, when he made his escape in 

 a manner that caused considerable excitement. The cage in which 

 he was confined was being lowered through the hatchway, when 

 he forced his paws through the bars and lacerated the shoulder 

 of one of the sailors with a succession of ripping blows. The man 

 jumping aside yelling murder, startled his mates so that they 

 lost their grip on the cage, and it fell fifteen feet into the hold, 

 on to a pile of pig-iron ballast, which fractured it in such a manner 

 that the jaguar was soon loose in the hold of the ship. The 

 brute, after attempting to regain the deck by a series of bounds, 

 managed at last to reach one of the rafters, and jumping from it 

 to another, reached the hatchway by a desperate leap. The 

 frightened sailors endeavoured to confine him by covering the 

 aperture with a trap-door, but the animal got his paws through, 

 then his head, and despite a shower of blows, enlarged the opening 

 sufl&ciently to free the rest of his body, and so reached the deck. 

 He stood there for a second, glaring on the sailors, who were 

 making a regular stampede, and then took a flying leap into the 

 water, clearing the gunwale at a bound. The boat, which was 

 under weigh, was about a mile or a mile and a half from shore, 

 and seeing the animal swimming towards it the crew fired rifles 

 and pistols at him, making the water fly around his head. The 

 marines were about to fire, when a lieutenant interfered, " Ges- 

 sez-(^a, mes cossacques ! a chap that could beat us fair and 

 square, on our own deck, ought not to be shot in the water like a 

 cowardly deserter; give him a chance." In consequence, and to 

 the disgust of the wounded sailor, they soon saw the animal land 

 on the opposite shore, shake himself, and disappear in the woods. 

 Thus our French neighbours lost what was no doubt a splendid 

 specimen of the jaguar. 



The representatives of these animals now in the Zoological 



