98 WILD ANIMALS. 



manner they appear to liave accompanied him on all his marches, 

 or when he changed his residence. The animals in consequence 

 became well known to the Italians, and we see them represented in 

 the patterns of the silk damask and other textile fabrics of the 

 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 



Boldensel speaks of the cheetah being used in Cyprus during 

 the first half of the fourteenth century. 



In the middle ages everything appertaining to hunting came 

 into fashion again among the youth of the nobility, we learn 

 ■ from Lacroix's ® admirable work, and they adopted many strange 

 sporting devices, notably that of importing animals from other- 

 countries. " After having imported the reindeer from Lapland, 

 which did not succeed in their temperate climate, and the pheasant 

 from Tartary, with which they stocked the woods, they imported 

 with greater success the panther and the leopard from Africa, 

 which were used for furred game, as the hawk was for feathered 

 game. The mode of hunting with these animals was as follows. 

 The sportsmen, preceded by their dogs, rode across country, each 

 with a leopard sitting behind him on his saddle. ,When the dogs 

 had started the game the leopard jumped off the saddle and 

 sprang after it, and as soon as it was caught the hunters threw 

 the leopard a bit of raw flesh, for which he gave up the prey, and 

 remounted behind his master." This account is accompanied by 

 an excellent illustration of the hunter mounted, with the cheetah 

 sitting behind him, collared and chained, which by the kind 

 permission of the publishers is reproduced in this work, and will 

 be found on page 97. 



Louis XI., King of France from 1461 to 1483, Charles YIII., 

 1483 to 1498, Louis XIL, 1498 to 1515, and Francis L, who 

 ascended the throne in 1515, all used hunting leopards in the 

 chase. Of this later monarch Topsell says : " I will add a true 

 narrative of two Panthers or Leopards nourished in France for the 

 king, whereof one was of the bigness of a great Calf, and the other 

 of a great Dog, and that on a day the lesser was brought forth 

 for the king to behold how tame and tractable he was, and 

 that he would ride behinde his keeper upon a cloth or pillow 

 ' " Manners, Customs, and Dress during the Middle Ages," by Paul Lacroix. 



