470 
VAKTETIE3 OF THE JAGTTAU. 
After four hours’ navigation down the Orinoco we arrived 
at the point of the bifurcation. Our resting place was on 
the same beach of the Cassiquiare, where a few days pre- 
viously our great dog had, as we believe, been carried oft 
by the jaguars. All the endeavours of the Indians to dis- 
cover any traces of the animal were fruitless. The cries of 
the jaguars were heard during the whole night.* These 
animals are very frequent in the tracts situated between 
the Cerro Maraguaca, the Unturan, and the banks of the 
Pamoni. There also is found that black species of tiger t 
of which I saw some fine skins at Esmeralda. This animal 
is celebrated for its strength and ferocity ; it appears to be 
still larger than the common jaguar. The black spots are 
scarcely visible on the dark-brown ground of its skin. The 
Indians assert, that these tigers are very rare, that they 
never mingle with the common jaguars, and that they “ form 
another race.” I believe that Prince Maximilian of Neuwied, 
who has enriched American zoology by so many important 
observations, acquired the same information farther to the 
south, in the hot part of Brazil. Albino varieties of the 
jaguar have been seen in Paraguay : for the spots of these 
animals, which may be called the beautiful panthers of 
America, are sometimes so pale, as to be scarcely distin- 
guishable on a very white ground. In the black jaguars, on 
the contrary, it is the colour of the ground which renders 
the spots indistinct. It requires to reside long in those 
countries, and to accompany the Indians of Esmeralda in 
the perilous chace of the tiger, to decide with certainty upon 
the varieties and the species. In all the mammiferse, and 
particularly in the numerous family of the apes, we ought, 
* This frequency of large jaguars is somewhat remarkable in a country 
destitute of cattle. The tigers of the Upper Orinoco are far less bounti- 
fully supplied with prey than those of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres and 
the Llanos of Caracas, which are covered with herds of cattle. More 
than four thousand jaguars are killed annually in the Spanish colonies, 
several of them equalling the mean size of the royal tiger of Asia. Two 
thousand skins of jaguars were formerly exported annually from Buenos 
Ayres alone. 
+ Gmelin, in his ‘ Synonyma,’ seems to confound this animal, unde! 
the name of Felis discolor, with the great American lion, (Felis concol'f,! 
which is very different from the puma of the Andes of Quito. 
