SELF-COLOURED CATS 
unwinking eye. It is possible that these contrivances 
have a value to the beast, and prevent some molesta- 
tion. ‘The fery tigere full of felonye” has a purely 
Asiatic range, and, like the puma, is indifferent to heat 
or to cold. But in the north it puts on a thicker coat. 
It is a good swimmer, and regularly crosses over the 
strait to Singapore ; it swims the Amur in northern 
Asia, and there are thus but few obstacles to its roam- 
ing. It is strong above all carnivorous beasts of the 
field. A big tiger, it is alleged, can seize a bullock and 
chuck him ten or fifteen yards as can a terrier a rat. 
But it is only proper to observe that this is ridiculed 
by Sir Samuel Baker. It growls “like a waggon going 
fast over a wooden bridge,” and has also a somewhat 
plaintive cry, a kind of querulous mew, generally to 
be heard in the lion house at the Zoo. The tiger in 
India almost takes the place of the wolf in this country. 
Just as we have Wolverton, Wolfslee, and other names 
associated with the name of the canine carnivore, so in 
India are analogous equivalents of tiger town, and so 
forth, commemorating the huge Asiatic feline. More- 
over, in this country there were werewolves, men who 
had changed into wolves ; in India the tiger has given 
rise to exactly the same kind of legend. 
THE PUMA 
Like the lion, the eyra, a lean somewhat mongoose- 
like cat, and the caracal, the puma is what is called 
““self-coloured ”’ : that is, it is of uniform colour more 
or less throughout. It is tawny, tending to brown or 
grey at the two extremes, and whiter below. Its 
young, however, are as spotted as any pard, and would 
not be thought to be of puma parentage by any one 
who was ignorant of the fact and shown the skins. 
This would appear to argue that the puma, desert 
coloured though it is at the present day, has descended 
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