Part 4

The prodigious Mammoth, whose enormous bones I have often viewed with astonishment, and which were at least six times bigger than those of the largest elephant, exists no longer; although its remains have been found in Ireland, Siberia, Louisiana, and other places remote from each other. Of all species of quadrupeds this was certainly the largest and strongest, and since it has disappeared, how many smaller, weaker, and less remarkable, must have perished, without having left any evidence of their past existence? How many others have been improved or degraded by the great vicissitude of the earth and waters, by the culture or neglect of nature, by their long continuance in favourable or repugnant climates, that they are no longer the same! and yet, next to man, quadrupeds are beings whose nature is most fixed, and whose form most permanent. Birds and fishes vary more: those of insects are subject to greater variations still; and if we descend to plants, which ought not to be excluded from animated nature, we shall be astonished at the celerity and facility with which they vary and assume new forms.

It may not be impossible, then, without inverting the order of nature, that all the animals of the new world originated from the same stock as those of the old; that having been afterwards separated by immense seas or impassable lands, they, in course of time, underwent all the effects of a climate which was new to them, and which must also have had its qualities changed by the very causes which produced its separation; and that they, in consequence, became not only inferior in size, but different in nature. But these circumstances, if true, ought not to prevent us from considering them now as animals of different species. From whatever causes these changes may have proceeded, whether produced by time, climate, or soil, or whether originating with the creation, they are not the less real. Nature is, indeed, in a perpetual fluctuation. It is sufficient for man to watch her in his own time, to look a little backward and forward, by way of forming a conjecture of what she might have been formerly and what she may hereafter be.

As to the utility to be derived from this comparison of animals, it is evident, that independent of correcting the errors of our nomenclators, our knowledge of the animal creation will be enlarged, rendered less imperfect and more certain; that we shall be in less hazard of attributing to American animals, properties which belong to those of the East Indies, because they may have the same name; that in treating of foreign animals, from accounts given by travellers, we shall be more able to distinguish names and facts, and to refer them to their true species; and, in fine, that the history in which we are now engaged will be less erroneous, and perhaps more luminous and complete.

_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._

THE TIGER.

In the class of carnivorous animals, the lion stands foremost, and he is immediately followed by the tiger, who, possessing all the bad qualities of the former, is a stranger to his good ones. To pride, courage, and strength, the lion adds dignity, clemency, and generosity, while the tiger is ferocious without provocation and cruel without necessity. Thus it is throughout all nature where rank proceeds from the superiority of strength. The first class, sole master of all, are less tyrannical than their immediate inferiors, who, denied unlimited authority, abuse those powers which they possess; thus the tiger is more to be dreaded than the lion. The latter often forgets that he is the sovereign, or strongest of animals; with an even pace he traverses the plains and forests; man he attacks not unless provoked, nor animals but when goaded by hunger. The tiger, on the contrary, though glutted with carnage, has still an insatiate thirst for blood; his rancour has no intervals. With indiscriminate fury he tears in pieces every animal he comes near, and destroys with the same ferocity a fresh animal as he had done the first. Thus he is the scourge of every country he inhabits; and of the appearance of man or his weapons, he is fearless. He will destroy whole flocks of domestic animals if he meets with them, and all the wild animals that come in his way. He attacks the young elephant and rhinoceros, and will sometimes brave the lion himself.

The form of the body usually corresponds with the nature and disposition. The noble air of the lion, the height of his limbs in exact proportion to the length of his body, his large thick mane, which covers his shoulders and shades his face, his determined aspect, and solemn pace, seem to announce the dignity and majestic intrepidity of his nature. The tiger has a body too long, limbs disproportionally short, naked head, and haggard eyes; strong characteristics of desperate malice and insatiable cruelty. He has no instinct but an uniform rage, a blind fury, so undistinguishing that he not unoften devours his own progeny, and even tears the dam in pieces if she offers to defend them. Would he were to gratify his thirst for blood to its utmost, and by destroying them at their birth extinguish the whole race of monsters which he produces!

Happy is it for other animals that the species of tiger is not numerous, and that it is chiefly confined to the warmest provinces of the East. They are found in Malabar, Siam, Bengal, and in all the countries inhabited by the elephant and rhinoceros. It is, indeed, said, that they accompany the latter for the purpose of eating their dung, which serves to purge them. Be this as it may, they are often seen together at the sides of lakes and rivers, where they are probably compelled to go by thirst, having often occasion for water to cool that fervor they so constantly endure. It is also a convenient situation to surprise his victims, since the heat of the climate compels all animals to seek for water several times a day; here he chooses his prey, or rather multiplies his massacres, for having killed one animal, he often proceeds to the destruction of others, tearing open their bodies, and swallowing their blood by long draughts; for which their thirst seems never to be appeased.

When, however, he has killed a large animal, as a horse, or buffalo, he does not devour it on the spot, for fear of being disturbed, but drags it off to the forest, which he does with such ease, that the swiftness of his course seems scarcely retarded by the enormous load which he trails after him. From this circumstance we might judge of his strength, but we shall have a more just idea of it by considering his bodily dimensions. Some travellers have compared him for size to the horse, others to the buffalo, and others merely say he is larger than the lion; but we have accounts more recent, which deserve the utmost confidence. I have been assured by M. de la Lande-Magon that he saw a tiger in the East-Indies fifteen feet long; allowing that he includes the tail, and granting four feet for that, the body would still be more than ten. It is true that the skin preserved in the Royal Cabinet of France is not more than seven feet from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the tail; but this tiger had been taken very young, and was afterwards always confined in a very narrow apartment, where the want of exercise, and space to range in, restraint and, perhaps, not having proper nourishment, not only its life might have been shortened, but the growth of its body prevented. From the dissection of animals of every species that have been reared in houses or court-yards, we find that their bodies and members for want of exercise, never attain their natural dimensions, and that the organs which are not used as those of generation, are so little expanded as to be scarcely perceivable.

The difference of climate alone is capable of producing the same effects as confinement and want of exercise. None of the animals of hot countries produce in cold ones, even though well fed, and at full liberty; and as reproduction is a natural consequence of full nutrition, it is evident that when the former does not operate the latter must be incomplete; and that, in such animals, cold of itself is sufficient to restrain the powers of the internal mould, and to diminish the growth, since it destroys the active faculties of reproduction. It is not, therefore, surprising that the tiger above alluded to should not have acquired its natural growth; yet from a bare view of its stuffed skin, and an examination of its skeleton, we may form an idea of its formidable strength as an animal. Upon the bones of the legs there are inequalities which denote muscular ligatures stronger than those of the lion. These bones are also to the full as strong, though shorter; and, as already intimated, the height of the tiger's legs bear no proportion to the length of his body. Thus that velocity which Pliny ascribes to him and which the word _tiger_ seems to imply, ought not to be understood of his ordinary movements, or the celerity of his continued course; for it is evident, that as his legs are short and he can neither walk nor run so fast as those animals which have them proportionally longer; but this prodigious swiftness, may with great propriety, be applied to the extraordinary bounds he is capable of making without any particular effort, for if we suppose him to have the same strength and agility in proportion with the cat, which he greatly resembles in conformation, and which in an instant will leap several feet, we must allow that the bounds of a tiger, whose body is ten times as large, must be immense. It is not, therefore, the quickness of his running, but of his leaping that Pliny meant to denote, and which from the impossibility of evading, when he has made a spring, still renders him more formidable.

The tiger is, perhaps, the only animal whose spirit cannot be subdued. Neither force nor restraint, violence nor flattery, can prevail, in the least, on his stubborn Nature. He is equally indignant at the gentle and harsh usage of his keeper; and time instead of mollifying his disposition, only serves to increase his fierceness and malignity. With equal wrath he snaps at the hand that feeds as that which chastises him. He roars at the sight of every object which lives, and seems to consider all as his proper prey; he seems to devour beforehand with a look, menacing it with the grinding of his teeth, and, regardless of his chains, makes efforts to dart upon it, as if to shew his malignity when incapable of exerting his force.

To complete the idea of the strength of this terrible animal we shall quote Father Tachard's account of a combat between a tiger and three elephants, at Siam, of which he was an eye-witness; he says, "a lofty palisade of bamboo cane was built, about a hundred feet square, into which inclosure three elephants were introduced, for the purpose of fighting a tiger. Their heads, and part of their trunks, were covered with a kind of armour like a mask. As soon as we arrived at the place a tiger was brought forth, of a size much larger than any we had seen before; he was not at first let loose, but held by two cords, so that he could not make a spring; one of the elephants approached and gave him three or four blows on the back with his trunk, with such force as to beat him to the ground, where he lay for some time without motion, as if he had been dead, although this first attack had greatly abated his fury, he was no sooner untied, and at liberty, than he gave a loud roar, and made a spring at the elephant's trunk, which was stretched out to strike him; but the elephant drew up his trunk with great dexterity, received the tiger upon his tusks, and tossed him up into the air. This so discouraged him that he no more ventured to approach the elephant, but made several turns round the palisade, making several efforts to spring at the spectators. Shortly after a second, and then a third elephant was set against him, each of which gave him such blows that he once more lay for dead, and they certainly would have killed him had not an end been put to the combat." From this account we may form some idea of the strength and ferocity of the tiger; for this animal, though young, and not arrived at his full growth, though reduced to captivity, and held by cords, yet he was so formidable to three such enormous foes, that it was thought necessary to protect those parts of their bodies which were not defended by impenetrable skin.

The tiger, of which an anatomical description was made by the Jesuits at China, and communicated by Father Gouie to the Academy of Sciences, seemed to be the true species,[E] as does also that which the Portuguese have distinguished by the name of Royal Tiger. Dellon expressly says, in his Travels, that tigers abound more in Malabar than in any other part of the East Indies; that their species are numerous, but that the largest, which is as big as a horse, and called by the Portuguese the Royal Tiger, is very rare. To all appearance, then, the Royal Tiger is not a different species; he is found in the East Indies only; and, notwithstanding what has been said by Brisson, and others, is an utter stranger at Brasil. I am even inclined to think that the real tiger is peculiar to Asia, and the inland parts of the south of Africa; for though the generality of travellers, who have frequented the African coasts, speak of tigers as very common, yet it is very plain, from their own accounts of them, that they are either leopards, panthers, or ounces. Dr. Shaw says, that the lion and panther hold the first rank at Tunis and Algiers, and that in those parts of Barbary the tiger is an animal unknown. This observation seems founded in truth, for they were Indian, and not African, ambassadors, who presented Augustus, while at Samos, the first tiger the Romans had ever seen; and it was also from the Indies that Heliogabalus procured those tigers, with which, in order to represent the god Bacchus, he proposed that his car should be drawn.

[Footnote E: This tiger was streaked, and had been slain, with four others, in the field, by the Emperor, it weighed 265lbs; but one of them weighed 400; when dissected, one-third of its stomach was full of worms, and yet it could not be said the animal had begun to putrify. _Hist. Acad._ 1669.]

Thus the species of the tiger has always been more rare and less diffused than that of the lion. The female, like the lioness, however, produces four or five cubs at a time. She is fierce at all times, but, upon her young being in danger, her fury becomes excessive. She then braves every danger to secure them, and will pursue the plunderers of them with such ferocity, that they are often obliged to drop one to secure the rest; this she takes up and conveys to the nearest cover, and then renews the pursuit, and will follow them to the very gates of towns, or to the ships in which they may have taken refuge; and when she has no longer hopes recovering her young, she expresses her agony by the most dismal howls of despair.

The tiger testifies his anger in the same manner as the lion; he moves the skin of his face, shews his teeth, and roars in a frightful manner; but the tone of his voice is very different; and some travellers have compared it to the hoarse croak of certain large birds; and the ancients expressed it by saying, _Tigrides indomitæ raucant, rugiuntque Leones_.

The skins of these animals are much esteemed, particularly in China; the Mandarins cover their seats and sedans with them, and also their cushions and pillows in winter. In Europe, though scarce, they are of no great value; those of the panther and leopard being held in much greater estimation. The skin is the only advantage, trifling as it is, which man can derive from this dreadful animal. It has been said that his sweat is poisonous, and that the hair of his whiskers is more dangerous than an envenomed arrow; but the real mischiefs he does when alive are sufficient, without giving imaginary ones to parts of his body when dead; for certain it is, the Indians eat the flesh of the tiger, and that they neither find it disagreeable nor unwholesome, and if the hair of his whiskers, taken in the form of a pill, do destroy, it is that being hard and sharp it produces the same effect in the stomach as a number of small needles would.

THE PANTHER, OUNCE, AND LEOPARD.

In order to avoid an erroneous use of names, to prevent doubt, and to banish ambiguity, it may be necessary to remark that, in Asia and Africa, there are, beside the tiger, whose history we have just given, three other animals of the same genus, but which not only differ from him, but also from each other. These are the Panther, Ounce and Leopard, which have been confounded together by naturalists, and also with a species of the same kind peculiar to America; but to prevent confusion, we shall, in the present instance, confine ourselves solely to those of the old continent.

_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._

The first of these species is the Panther, (_fig. 107._) which the Greeks distinguished by the name of Pardalis, the Latins by that of Panthera, and Pardus, and the more modern Latins by Leopardus. The body of this animal, when it has attained its full growth, is five or six feet long, from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the tail, which is above two feet long. Its colour is of a yellow hue, more or less dark on the back and sides, and whitish under the belly; it is marked with black spots which are circular, or in the form of a ring, and in which rings there are generally lesser spots in the centre of the same colour; some of these are oval, others, circular, and are frequently above three inches in diameter; on the face and legs the black spots are single, and on the tail and belly they are irregular.

The second is the Little Panther of Oppian, which the ancients have distinguished by no particular name, but which modern travellers have called Ounce, corrupted from the name of lynx or lunx. To this animal we shall preserve the name of Ounce, because, in fact, it seems to have some affinity to the lynx. It is much less than the panther, its body being only about three feet and a half long, which is nearly the size of the lynx; its hair is longer than that of the panther, as is also its tail, which sometimes measures three feet, although its body is one-third less than that of the panther, whose tail never exceeds two feet and an half. The colour of the ounce is whitish grey upon the back and sides, and still more white under the belly; the back and sides of the panther are always yellow, but the spots are nearly of the same size and form in them both.

The third species was unknown to the ancients, being peculiar to Senegal, Guinea, and other southern countries which they had not discovered; and which we, following the example of travellers, shall call Leopard a name which has been improperly applied to the panther. The Leopard is larger than the ounce, though considerably smaller than the panther, being only four feet in length, the tail measures from two to two feet and a half. On the back and sides the hair is of a yellow colour, under the belly it is whitish; it has black annular spots like those of the panther and ounce, but smaller and less regularly disposed.

Each of these animals, therefore, forms a different species. Our furriers call the skins of the first species panther skins; those of the second, which we call ounce, African tiger skins; and those of the third, or leopard, very improperly tiger skins.

Oppian knew the panther and ounce, and was the first who observed there were two species of the former, the one large and the other small. Though alike in the form of their bodies and the disposition of the spots, yet they differed in the length of their tails, which in the small species was longer than in the large ones. The Arabians have named the large panther Nemer, and the small one Phet or Phed; which last seems to be a corruption of Faadh, the present name of this animal in Barbary. "The Faadh," says Dr. Shaw, in his Travels, "resembles the leopard, (he should have expressed it panther) in having similar spots, in other respects they however differ, for the skin of the faadh is more dark and coarse, and its disposition is also less fierce." Besides we learn from a passage of Albert, commented on by Gesner, that the phet, or phed of the Arabs, is called in the Italian, and some other European languages Leuaza, or Lonza. It is beyond a doubt then, that the little panther of Oppian, the phet or phed of the Arabians, the faadh of Barbary, and the onza, or ounce of the Europeans, is the same animal; and probably also is the Pard or Pardus of the ancients, and the Panthera of Pliny; since he mentions its hair is white, whereas, as we have observed, that of the great Panther is yellow. It is, besides, highly probable that the little panther was simply called pard or pardus, and that, in process of time, the large panther obtained the name of leopard, or leopardus, from a notion that it was a mongrel species, which had aggrandized itself by an intermixture with that of the lion. As this could only be an unfounded prejudice, I have preferred the primitive name of panther to the modern compound one of leopard, which last I have applied to another animal that has hitherto been mentioned by equivocal names only. The ounce therefore differs from the panther, in being smaller, having a longer tail, also longer hair, of a whitish grey colour; while the leopard differs from them both, by having a coat of a brilliant yellow, more or less deep, and by the smallness of his spots, which are generally disposed in groups, as if each were formed by three or four united.

Pliny, and several after him, have said, that the coat of the female panther was whiter than that of the male. This may be true of the ounce, but no such difference have we ever observed in the panthers belonging to the menagerie of Versailles, which were designed from life; and if there be any difference between the colour of the male and female it can be neither very permanent nor sensible; in some of the skins we have, indeed, perceived different shades, but which we rather ascribed to the difference of age or climate than of sex.