OF THE GENUS FELIS. 
471 
America sometimes leaps into the water to attack the In- 
dians in their canoes.'"* 
I am personally acquainted with gentlemen who have 
hunted the Jaguaret in Paraguay, and who describe it 
as a very courageous and powerful animal, of great activity, 
and highly dangerous when at bay. Both this species and 
the puma are rendered more formidable by the facility 
with which they can ascend trees. I have been assured by 
several friends, who have repeatedly hunted the tiger in 
India, that even this " most beautiful and cruel of beasts 
of prey," as it is termed by Linnaeus, generally endeavours 
to escape from the hunters, unless bard pressed, or sur- 
prised in a situation from which retreat is difficult : and 
one gentleman informed me, that, on a shooting excursion, 
to his great horror he found himself without a companion 
in a small field, in which he espied a tiger watching him ; 
that, finding retreat impossible, he advanced against the 
animal firmly, when it slowly retired, until he had an op- 
portunity of despatching it with his rifle. 
Such instances shew that there is no striking difference 
between the habits and courage of the beasts of prey of the 
Old and New Continents, as imagined by Buffon. 
While naturalists have been so unjust to the character 
of the American animals of this genus, the forms of these 
quadrupeds have not been more fortunately delineated in 
our engravings. For instance; the figure of the black 
tiger in Buffon, and in his copyist Shaw, is so wretchedly 
drawn, and its limbs are so distorted, that not a trace of 
the genuine form is preserved ; but it is considerably better 
given in the respectable work of Pennant. The figures 
of the jaguar and puma, in both the former works, are in- 
accurate in many respects, especially in the form of the 
heads, and in giving no idea of the fierce expression of the 
countenances. The figure of the ocelot, in Shaw^ is an 
