FELIS. 
mountains. Its colour is, a deep tawny, or 
orange-yellow, the face, throat, and under 
side of the heily, being nearly white ; the 
whole is traversed by numerous long black 
stripes, forming a bold and striking contrast 
with the ground-colour. About the face and 
breast the stripes are proportionally smaller 
than on other parts ; the tail is annulated 
with black, and is shorter, than the body > 
There seems to be some variation in the pro* 
portion and number ot the stripes in differ- 
ent individuals; and the ground-colour is 
more or less bright, according to various cir- 
cumstances of age and health in the respec- 
tive animals. Linnaeus calls the tiger “ pid- 
cherrimm quadmpedum .” We must not 
bulge of tire elegance of this animal’s robe 
from the specimens which are sometimes 
seen in, museums, or even from such living 
ones as by long confinement, and an altera- 
tion of climate, have lost the native brilliancy 
of their, colours. When seen in perfection, 
and before its health has been, impaired by 
confinement, it is scarcely possible to con- 
ceive a more elegantly variegated animal 
than the tiger: the bright and intense orange- 
yellow, which constitutes the ground-colour ; 
the deep and well-defined, stripes, of black, 
in some parts double, in others single ; the 
pure, white of the cheeks and lower part of 
the skies, over which a part ot the black 
striping. is continued.;, form all together an ap- 
pearance, far superior in beauty to the skin 
of the. zebra, or that of any other regularly 
marked quadruped, not excepting, even the 
panther itself. 
In its general size the tiger is inferior only 
to tiie lion, and lias been seen even larger, 
viz. of the length of I'S.feet from the nose, to 
the tip of the tail. The largest are those of 
India, and are termed royal tigers ; but this 
distinction is supposed to relate merely to 
the size of the animal, there being only one 
species of tiger,, though there may perhaps 
be some races larger than others. 
Of so tierce and sanguinary a disposition 
ii the tiger, as to surpass in rapacity every 
other wild beast, and it is therefore considered 
as the most dreadful scourge of the hotter re- 
gions of Asia. The lion is commonly sup- 
posed to prey in a less malignant and cruel 
manner. He is also, when taken into a state 
of confinement, capable of 'being tamed, and 
rendered mild and placid to his keepers; but 
the tiger is not to be divested of his natural 
ferocity of character, and in confinement he 
generally. exhibits all the symptoms of malig-' 
nity. II is method of seizing his prey is by- 
concealing himself from view, and springing 
with a horrible roar on his victim, which' he 
carries off and tears in pieces, after having, 
first sucked out the blood. The voice of the 
tiger, in the act of springing on his prey, is 
said to be hideous beyond conception. , Even 
a buffalo lias been thus seized by a tiger, and 
carried off with such seeming ease,, as to ap- 
pear scarcely an impediment to the animal's 
flight. It is affirmed, tiiat if the tiger hap 
pens to miss his aim, he does not pursue his 
prey, but, as if ashamed 1 of his disappomt- 
meat, runs off. lint he beginning of the last 
century (says • Mr. . Pennant), a ‘company, 
seated under the shade of some trees, near 
the banks of a river in Bengal, were surprised 
by the unexpected sight of a tiger preparing 
for its fatal spring ; when a lady, .with -al- 
most unexampled presence of mind, Juried a 
large umbrella in the -animal $'" face, which in- 
stantly retired, and thus gave an opportunity 
of escaping from so terrible a neighbour. 
Another party had not the same good for- 
tune; but in' the height of their entertain- 
ment lost in an instant one of their compa- 
nions, who was seized and carried off by a 
tiger. But the fatal accident which occurred 
iii 1792, in the East Indies, must be still 
fresh in the memory of ail who read the 
dreadful description given by an eye-witness 
of the scene. “ We went (says the narrator) 
on shore on Sangar island to shoot deer, ot 
which we saw innumerable traces, as well as 
of tigers ; notwithstanding which we conti- 
nued our diversion till near three o’clock, 
when, sitting down by the side of a jungle to 
refresh ourselves, a roar like thunder was 
heard, and an immense tiger seized on our 
unfortunate friend Mr. Monro, son of sir 
Hector Monro, and rushed again into the 
jungle, dragging him through the thickest 
bushes and trees, every thing giving way to 
| his monstrous strength : a tigress accompa- 
nied his progress. .The united agonies ot 
horror, regret, and fear, rushed at once upon 
us. 1 fired on the tiger :■ he seemed agitated. 
My companion tired also; and in a tew mo- 
ments after this, our unfortunate friend came 
up to us, bathed in blood. Every medical 
assistance was vain, and he expired in the 
space' of 24 hours, having received such deep 
wounds from the teeth and claws of the ani- 
mal as rendered his recovery hopeless. A 
large lire, consisting of 10 or 12 whole trees, 
was blazing by us at the time this accident 
took place, and ten or more of the natives 
were with us. The human mind can scarcely 
form any idea of this scene of horror. We' 
had hardly pushed our boat from that ac- 
cursed shore, when the tigress made her ap- 
pearance, almost raging mad, and remained 
on the sand all the while we continued in 
sight.” 
The tiger has-been known to attack even a 
lion, and both animals have perished in the 
conflict. The tigress, like the lioness, pro- 
duces four or five young at a litter: she is at 
all times furious, but her rage rises to the ut- 
most extremity when robbed of her young. 
She then braves every danger, and pursues 
her plunderers, who are often obliged to re- 
lease one in order to -retard her motion. She 
stops, takes it up, and carries it to the nearest 
cover, but instantly returns, and renews her 
pursuit, even to the very gates of buildings 
or the edge of the sea; and when her hope of 
recovering them is lost, she expresses her 
agony by hideous bowlings, which excite ter- 
ror wherever they reach. See Plate Nat. 
Hist. tig. 204. ■ 
, 3. Felis pardus, panther. Next to the ti- 
ger, the panther is the most conspicuous spe- 
cies in this ‘genus, .measuring about six feet 
and a half, and sometimes nearly seven feet 
from nose to tail, which is itself about three 
feet long.. The colour of the panther is a 
bright and beautiful tawny yellow, thickly 
marked all over the upper parts ofihe body, 
shoulders, and thighs, with roundish black 
spots, disposed into circles, consisting of tour 
or five separate spots ; and there is common- 
ly, but not always, a -central spot in each 
709 
On the face and legs the spots are single, and 
along the top of the back is a row of oblong 
spots, which are still longer as they approach 
the tail. The breast and belly are white; 
the former marked with transverse dusky 
stripes, the latter and the tail with large irre- 
gular black spots. 
The panther is principally found in Africa, 
and is to that country what the tiger is to 
Asia, with this alleviating circumstance, that 
it is supposed to prefer the destruction of 
other animals to that of man. Its manner of 
seizing its prey resembles that of the tiger, 
lurking near the sides of woods, &c. and 
darting forward with a sudden spring. It is 
of a highly ferocious nature, and scarcely to 
be tamed. These animals and the leopard 
were the varii and par'di of the antionfS; and 
one would think (says Mr. Pennant) that the 
Romans would have exhausted the deserts of 
Africa by the numbers they drew thence for 
their public spectacles. Scaurus exhibited 
at one time' 150 panthers; Pompey the 
Great, 410; and Augustus, 420. It has 
been doubted whether the panther and the 
leopard wereffiatives of America as well as of 
the old continent; but this question seems 
now to be decided in the negative. 
4. Felis leopardus, the leopard, is best dis- 
tinguished from the panther by its paler yel- 
low colour, its smaller size, and the some-' 
what closer disposition of the spots which, 
form its ocellated markings ; but to a mere 
general observer, the two animals are so ex- 
tremely alike as to be frequently mistaken 
i for each other. A true distinctive mark be- 
I tween the leopard and panther is by 110 means 
easy to communicate either by description 
or even by figure. The principal difference 
is in size, the leopard being considerably the - 
smallest of the two : the colour of the pan- 
ther is richer or more fulvous than that of the 
leopard ; but this too is liable to a degree of 
uncertainty: the ocelli or rounded marks on 
the panther are larger and more distinctly 
formed; but the character given by Mr. 
, Pennant of the panther, viz. a central spot 
in the middle of each, is by no means a per- 
manent or truly distinctive mark ; since the 
spots in seme specimens (perhaps the males) 
are quite plain in the middle ; while, in 
some specimens of the leopard, one or more’ 
small central spots are, visible. As to the 
subtransvevse marks- about the neck or breast, 
they seem to beffull as distinct in the leopard 
as in the panther, and perhaps, upon the 
whole, we must be content with' distinguish- 
ing the two ‘species by the size, and by the 
fulvous yellow 01 the panther, and the clearer - 
or paler yellow of the leopard. The general 
length of this species from nose to fail, is four- 
feet, of the tail two and a lialf. It is a native 
of Senegal and Guinea, as well as of many 
other part? of Africa: it gilso occurs in seve- 
ral parts of Asia, viz. -in Persia, India, China, 
&c. In. its manners’ iff resembles the pan- 
ther. 
circle, in which particular, as well as in its 
superior- size and deeper colour,' the panther 
’differs from the leopard, which has very rare- 
ly any central spots in'- its circular markings. 
A 'variety of this species, of a dusky black, 
marked with spots of a deeper or more glossy 
black,’ and perfectly resembling in disposition 
those of the common leopard, is found in 
(■Bengal-. ■’ In one of this kind brought to Eng- 
land some 'years ago, the fur, ..when a little 
turned aside, exhibited a slight tinge of the 
natural of general colour.- 
5i Felis jubata, the hunting .leopard, is about 
