FEUS. 
continued combat, notwithstanding the first 
ahd almost fatal discomfiture, were truly 
admirable. 
It is recorded by Mr. Pennant, that in 
the beginning of the last century, as a 
British party in India were indulging them- 
selves in rural recreation and festivity, to- 
tally unsuspicious of danger, an immense 
tiger was seen advancing towards them, 
and was so near as to be almost in the act 
to bound Upon them. Dismay and conster- 
nation instantly pervaded every individual 
present but one, who was a lady, and who, 
with a promptness and self-possession, pro- 
bably never exceeded, furled a large um- 
brella in the face of the tiger, and thus most 
happily effected its retreat. 
The catastrophe of Mr. Monro, in similar 
circumstances, was recorded by one of his 
companions, and may be not improperly 
noticed in this connection. In the year 
1792, several British gentlemen, together 
with Mr. Monro, went to shoot deer on 
Sangar island, on the shores of which they 
observed innumerable traces of the feet of 
both these animals, not only of the deer, 
but of the tiger. They continued their 
sport, however, for a very considerable 
time, and after completing it, were sitting 
down for refreshment near a jungle, when 
a tiger, with a most horrible roar, darted 
from the jungle, and seizing on Mr. Monro, 
burned back with him to the thicket, drag- 
ging him through the thickest bushes with 
amazing rapidity, and making every thing 
bend and yield to its prodigious strength. 
A tigress accompanied it in its progress. 
The tiger was fired at by the two remaining 
gentlemen, and was obliged to drop its 
prey; and in a few moments afterwards 
their unfortunate friend was advancing to- 
wards them weltering in his blood. He 
had received, however, such deep wounds 
from the teeth and claws of the tiger, as 
precluded the possibility of recovery, and 
after twenty-four hours of agony he ex- 
pired. The scene was dreadful beyond all 
the expression of words. At the time of 
the assault, an immense fire of several 
whole trees was burning by the spot, and 
shortly after their departure from these fatal 
shores, the gentlemen observed the tigress 
to make her re-appearance in all the agita- 
tion of unbounded fierceness and disap- 
pointed vengeance. The tigress produces 
but one litter, consisting generally of fiye 
young, in a year. In her defence of these, 
that fury which, even, in ordinary times, 
seems to mark her character, is wrought up 
to a paroxysm, in which she defies all 
danger, and exposes herself frequently to 
certain destruction. See Mammalia, Plate 
XIV. fig. 3. 
F. pardus, the panther. It was for some 
time a question whether the panther were 
not to be found in the new as well as in the 
old world ; it is now, however, fully ascertain- 
ed not to belong to America. It is found in 
Africa from the coast of Barbary to the 
south of Guinea, in the last of which it is 
found in considerable numbers. Its length 
is about six feet and a half without the tail, 
which generally measures three; its colour 
is a bright tawny yellow', thickly studded 
along the upper part of its body, with cir- 
cles of black spots containing a single spot 
in the centre. It is extremely ferocious, 
and its depredations in Africa resemble 
those of the tiger in Asia ; though the pan- 
ther, indeed, abstains, unless when urged 
by extreme hunger, from attack on man. 
Its mode of attack is always by surprise, 
and bursting from the thicket with an im- 
mense spring, or approaching with extreme 
silence and caution on its belly, it lights in- 
stantly upon its prey, and the moment of 
alarm is made by it, frequently, the moment 
of destruction. In China, where the skins of 
beautiful and brilliant quadrupeds are in 
high estimation, there is a variety of this 
species, the skin of which is sold for about 
six guineas. The number of panthers im- 
ported by the rich and ambitious among the 
Romans, to supply the popular sports of 
that city, is almost incredible; four hun- 
dred and ten were exhibited by Augustus 
within only a few days, and the immense 
demands which were made on Africa for 
this purpose, tended at length to render 
them procurable in the territory of Mau- 
ritania, only with very great labour and ex- 
pense. In that country they are at present 
rare, comparatively with what they must 
have been before those vast exportations ; 
hut farther to the south they are extremely 
numerous. See Mammalia, Plate XIV. 
fig. 2. 
F. leopardus, or the leopard. This ani- 
mal is principally distinguished from the 
preceding by its less lively yellow colour, 
its inferior size, and the closer arrangement 
of the spots with which it is diversified. Its 
manners are similar to those of the panther, 
and both inhabit the same territories. 
Among the vast herds of Lower Guinea 
they commit the most destructive havoc* 
