22 The Animal-Lore of Shalcspeare’s Time. 
both these and they men. . . . My intent is onely to proove that this 
beast may be a tigre, or of the kinde of tigres, although it bee not of 
such lightnesse and swiftnesse, as are they whereof Plinie and other 
authors speake, describing it to bee one of the swiftest beasts of the land, 
and that the river of Tygris, for the swift course thereof, was called by 
that name. The first Spaniards, which saw this tygre in the Firme 
Land, did so name it. Of the kind of these was that which Don Diego 
Columbo, the admiral, sent your majestie out of New Spaine to 
Toledo. Their heads are like to the heads of lions, or lionesses, but 
greater: the rest of their bodies and their legs are full of black spots, 
one neere unto another, and divided with a circumference, or fringe of 
red colour, shewing (as it were) a faire work and correspondent picture. 
About their croopes or hinder parts they have these spots biggest, 
and lesse and lesse toward their bellies, legs, and heads. I have seen 
some of three spans in height, and more than five in length. They 
are beasts of great force, with strong legs, and well armed with nayles 
and fanges which we call dog-teeth : they are so fierce that in my 
judgment no reall lyon of the biggest sort is so strong or fierce.” 
As this author is so precise in his description, it is 
somewhat strange that he should fail to notice the chief 
difference between this animal and the tiger. Even the 
rudest and the most heraldic drawing of a tiger must 
have had stripes and not spots. 
By early writers the Leopard, pard, or pardale, and 
the Panther, were considered to be two dis¬ 
tinct animals, though these authors made no 
attempt to show in what particulars the difference existed. 
Modern naturalists are of opinion that there is but one 
species. Leopards may no doubt vary in size and shape 
according to the locality in which they are found. In 
Christian art the leopard was symbolized as the repre¬ 
sentative of perseverance in evil. This idea is prominent 
in the interpretations of the passage in Jeremiah , “ Can 
the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? ” 
It may be that Shakspeare had this verse in mind when 
he wrote—“ Lions make leopards tame,” “ Yea, but not 
change their spots.” (Richard II., i. 1, 175.) 
The conventional lion of heraldic artists was supposed 
