CHAPTER VI

THE LARGER CATS

Now we come to the beasts of prey, foremost among which stand the members of the great cat tribe. All these animals have their bodies formed in a very wonderful way.

First of all, their eyes are intended for use chiefly by night. If you look at a cat's eyes during broad daylight, when the sun is shining, you will notice that the pupils, through which she sees, are nothing more than mere narrow slits in the middle. Look at them again toward evening, when the twilight is just beginning to creep on, and you will see that the pupils are a good deal bigger, occupying nearly half the eyeball. Look at them once again, when it is almost dark, and you will find that they are bigger still, having widened out over nearly the whole of the eye.

Now the eyes of a lion and a tiger are made in just the same way. The darker the night, the more the pupils expand, so that they may be able to take in the few rays of light that there are. We sometimes say that these animals can see in the dark. That, of course, is a mistake, for in perfect darkness no animal can see at all. But even on the darkest night there is always some light, and no matter how little there is it is enough to allow lions and tigers to see perfectly well, because of the wonderful way in which their eyes are made.

THE STEALTHY TREAD

But these creatures do not only want to be able to see their victims on a dark night; they also want to be able to creep up to them without making the slightest sound. It would be quite useless, for instance, for a lion to chase a deer, because the deer is by far the swifter animal of the two. If the lion is to catch the deer at all he must spring upon it unawares, and strike it down before it knows its danger. And this is not at all easy, for the ears of a deer are very sharp, and if the lion were to make the least noise while creeping up, it would take the alarm directly. But under his great broad paws the lion has soft, fleshy cushions, which enable him to walk along without making any noise at all. Haven't you noticed how silent a cat's tread is? You simply cannot hear her place her foot upon the ground. Well, lions and tigers walk in just the same noiseless manner, so that the deer never hears them creeping up, and is struck down and killed before it has time to realize its danger.

But suppose that there are bushes in the way. Suppose, for example, that in order to approach the deer at all the lion must creep through a thicket. Is he not quite sure to brush up against a branch as he does so, causing the leaves to rustle? And will not the deer hear the sound and take the alarm?

Well, no doubt this would happen if the lion had to depend for his silent approach only on the soft cushions under his feet. But then, you see, he has whiskers as well! Perhaps you thought these were only meant for ornament. But they are meant for use; and they are employed in a very curious manner. When they are spread out on either side, they measure from tip to tip exactly the width of the body. Besides this, there is a very delicate sensitive nerve at the root of every whisker, which runs straight to the brain. So, you see, if the tip of a whisker is touched, the brain feels it directly; and if as the lion is creeping through the bushes his outspread whiskers brush against the branches, he knows at once that there is no room for him to pass without making a noise and alarming his victim. So he draws his head back, and creeps up by another way.

KILLING AND EATING

Then it is very important that his claws should be kept sharp; for he depends upon them for tearing his victim down. So every claw fits into a sheath, which protects the point, and prevents it from being worn down by rubbing against the ground. You can easily see these sheaths by examining the paw of a cat; and those of the lion and tiger are formed in just the same way. And the muscles which work them are so arranged that they keep the claws always drawn back, except just when the animal uses its paw in striking.

And then, once more, these animals have very curious tongues. Haven't you noticed when a cat has licked your hand how very dry and rough her tongue feels? It is quite different from the smooth, wet tongue of a dog. Well, the tongue of a lion or tiger is even rougher still; and if you were to look at it sideways, you would see why. It is covered all over with sharp hook-like projections, the points of which are directed toward the throat.

The reason is this: a lion or a tiger does not succeed in killing prey every night. Sometimes it hunts for one night, sometimes for two nights, sometimes even for three nights, without any success at all. So that when it does catch a victim, it wants to eat as much of its flesh as it possibly can. And if its tongue were not made in this singular manner, it would have to waste a great deal; for its sharp-pointed teeth cannot tear off nearly all the flesh of the bones. By means of its rough tongue, however, it can lick off even the tiniest scraps; and not even the smallest atom has to be wasted.

If you give a dog a bone which is too big for him to crunch up and swallow, you will always find that he leaves a good deal of meat upon it. But if you give a similar bone to a hungry cat, you will find that she licks it perfectly clean. That is because her tongue is made in just the same way as that of a lion.

LIONS

About forty different kinds of cats are known, most of which are found in the warmer parts of Africa and Asia. The most famous of all, of course, is the lion, which is spread over the greater part of the African continent, and is also found in Persia and in India.

We need not describe the lion, for everybody knows perfectly well what it is like. But perhaps you do not know that the Indian lion hardly ever has a mane. For this reason it was formerly thought that there were two different kinds of lions, the Indian animal being quite different from that found in Africa. But we now know that this is not the case, and that the Indian lion is only a kind or variety, not a distinct species.

But there are very few lions left in India now, while even in Persia they are not nearly so plentiful as they used to be. In many parts of Africa, however, these animals abound, and it is not at all an uncommon thing for six or eight to be seen together.

During the daytime the lion is generally fast asleep, lying up in a thicket, or in a bed of reeds by the side of a pool or a river. But as soon as night falls he leaves his retreat, and begins to prowl about in search of prey, roaring loudly from time to time. One would think that this would only alarm other animals, and lead them to seek safety in flight. But when a lion roars he generally puts his head close to the ground, and this has the effect of making it almost impossible for them to tell from which direction the sound is coming, so that they do not know how best to try to escape him. And very often, in their bewilderment, they rush to the very spot where he is lying in wait.

When a lion springs upon his victim, he either kills it by a stroke from his terrible paw, or else bites it in the throat or across the back of the neck. He then drags it away to some convenient retreat, eats his fill, and returns to his lair to sleep. Next day, very likely, he will return to the carcass for another meal. But when he gets there he often finds that the jackals and hyenas have discovered it, and left very little for him.

Wherever a lion goes he is almost sure to be followed by a number of jackals, all anxious to feast on the remains of the animals he kills. But he never allows them to approach until he has eaten as much as he can possibly swallow, and it is said that if one of them attempts to do so he will catch it and bite off all its paws as a warning to the others to be more respectful.

According to a great many hunters, the lion is not nearly so courageous as it is generally supposed to be, and is really rather a cowardly animal. They say, for example, that it will hardly ever face a man unless it is brought to bay, but will always try to slink away and escape. If they kill a deer, and want to protect its body from the lions, they can always do so by tying two or three streamers of white cloth to sticks planted round the carcass, so that they flutter in the wind. And though the animals may prowl round and round all through the night, roaring loudly from time to time, they will never venture to approach within fifteen or twenty yards. Neither will they attack a tethered horse if the bridle is left hanging from its neck.

All hunters agree, however, that if a lion is wounded, or if it sees no chance of escape, it is a most terrible foe, and cannot be encountered without the utmost peril.

If a lion is captured while quite young, it is very easily tamed, and can even be taught to perform all kinds of tricks at the word of command. But lions born in captivity are not nearly so easy to manage, and can never be depended upon for a moment.

Lions generally have three or four cubs at a birth, and the little animals are just as playful at kittens. But although they are always ready for a good romp it is not wise to play with them, for a baby lion is as big as a good-sized cat, and is very much stronger, so that a bite from its teeth or a blow from its paw is rather a serious matter. For the first few months of their lives the cubs are brindled, almost like tigers, the stripes disappearing by degrees as the fur grows darker. They do not reach their full size until they are about four years old.

TIGERS

The tiger is found principally in the jungles of India, although it is spread over the greater part of Central and Southern Asia. In some respects it is a finer animal than even the lion. It is certainly stronger; it is quite as courageous; and it is nearly as large, though the shortness of its legs and the absence of a mane cause it to appear a good deal smaller.

Probably any one, on seeing a tiger for the first time, would imagine that it must be a very conspicuous animal in its native jungle. But, as a matter of fact, this is not the case at all. As long as a tiger keeps perfectly still it is most difficult to see him, even if you happen to be looking straight at him; for his bright orange fur, marked with glossy black stripes, looks just like the yellow leaves of the jungle-grass, with streaks of deep shadow between them. This coloring, of course, helps the tiger in two ways. In the first place, when he is hunting, it enables him to creep up to his victims without being seen; and in the second place, when he is being hunted himself, it often helps him to crawl away without being noticed.

In some parts of India tigers are still extremely common; and of course they do a great deal of mischief. They are very fond of preying upon domesticated cattle, and sometimes, every four or five days for months together, the same tiger will kill and carry away a bullock from the same herd. He generally kills his victims by springing upon them suddenly, seizing their throats with his jaws, and then wrenching their heads backward and sideways, so as to break their necks. Then he will either drag away the carcass into the jungle at once, or he will hide close by, and come back in order to feast upon it when night is beginning to fall.

Of course a tiger cannot devour the whole of a bullock's body at one meal; but at the same time he does not care to leave the remainder for the jackals. So when he has eaten his fill he nearly always finds a sleeping place close by, so that if he should wake up and hear a party of jackals quarreling over the carcass, he can rush out at them and drive them away.

MAN-EATERS

But worse by far than the cattle-destroying tigers are the man-eaters. These are sometimes said to be the old and almost toothless animals which can no longer kill a buffalo or a bullock, and therefore take to preying upon human beings instead. But very often quite a young animal becomes a man-eater; and it is said that if a tiger should once taste human blood he will always prefer it afterward to any other food.

A man-eating tiger will often throw a whole district into a state of terror. Day after day he will conceal himself among the thick bushes which border a native road, and lie in wait for solitary passers-by. One day, perhaps, a man will be carried off; the next day, a woman; the day after, a child. No one knows where the animal is hiding; and sometimes he will succeed in killing fifty or sixty human beings before he is discovered and destroyed.

TIGER-HUNTING

When the natives kill a tiger, they generally do so by driving him into a small clump of jungle, surrounding it with stout netting, and then spearing him through the meshes. Or perhaps they will climb a tree close to the carcass of a bullock which the animal has killed, and shoot him when he comes at dusk to feast upon its remains. But in Oudh the tiger is said to have been formerly destroyed in a very curious way. A number of leaves of the prauss tree, which are large and broad like those of a sycamore, were smeared with a kind of bird-lime, and laid upon the ground in the animal's path. When he came along one of these leaves would stick to his paws, and he would find that he could not shake it off. So he would try to remove it by rubbing it against his face. The only result, of course, would be that his nose and eyes became covered with bird-lime. Meanwhile he had trodden upon other leaves, which he tried to remove in the same way. Before very long his eyelids were stuck down so that he could not open them. Then he would lie down and rub his face upon the ground, covering it with earth, and so making matters worse. By this time he would be thoroughly frightened and begin to howl pitifully, so that when the hunters came running up they found the poor beast an easy prey.

Europeans, however, hunt the tiger by means of elephants, which have to be carefully trained before they can be depended upon to face the furious animal. A number of elephants are generally employed, the hunters riding in howdahs, seats fixed upon their backs, while several hundred natives, perhaps, act as beaters, shouting and yelling, beating drums, firing guns, and making as much din as they possibly can to frighten the animal from its retreat. Sometimes it is so terrified that it slinks out, and falls an easy prey. But now and then it will charge the nearest elephant with the utmost fury, sometimes springing upon it and almost reaching the howdah before it is killed by a well-directed bullet.

The number of tiger cubs in a litter varies from two to five, or even six, although families of more than three are not very common. The little ones do not reach their full size until they are three years old, and during the whole of that time they go about with their parents.

LEOPARDS

Much smaller than either the lion or the tiger, but still a very large and powerful animal, is the leopard, which is sometimes known as the panther. It is spread over almost the whole of Africa, and also over the greater part of Asia, and in many districts is very common.

You can always recognize the leopard by its markings. The ground color of the fur is bright yellow, with just a tinge of red in it, becoming lighter on the flanks, and passing into white on the lower surface of the body. The spots are black, and those on the back and sides are always ring-shaped, enclosing a patch of yellow. Sometimes, however, the whole of the fur is black. But even then you can see the spots, which look something like the markings in watered silk.

Somehow, these black leopards always seem far more savage than the others, and those who have them under their care say that it is quite impossible to tame them.

In spite of its smaller size, the leopard is nearly as powerful as the tiger, and in some ways is an even more formidable foe. It is much more active, for instance, and is more easily roused into rage; while it can climb trees like a cat, and spring down upon a passer-by from among the branches. It does not as a rule attack man, and will always seek safety in flight if it can. But if it is brought to bay it will fight furiously, and nothing will check it but a bullet through the heart or the brain.

When it can do so, the leopard always likes to live near the habitations of man, because there are so many opportunities of springing upon a pony, a sheep, or a goat. At night, too, it will rob the hen-roosts, or make its way into the pens where the calves are kept, and carry one of them off before its presence is even suspected. Dogs, too, fall victims to it in great numbers, and now and then it succeeds in pouncing upon an unwary monkey. When it kills an animal it does not leave the carcass lying on the ground as the tiger does, and visit it night after night until it is consumed, but carries parts of its body up into a tree, and hides them in a kind of larder which it has made among the branches.

Those who have hunted it say that the leopard is a far more difficult animal to kill than the tiger. The reason is that it is so much more wary. A tiger, as it creeps through the jungle, will look most carefully in front of it as it moves along, as well as on either side, but it never seems to think of looking up into the branches of a tree above, to see if an enemy is hiding there. So very often the hunter is able to shoot it before it has the least idea that it is in danger. But a leopard is much more cautious, and never comes back to its lair, or to the remains of its kill, without carefully examining the boughs above as well as the bushes below; so that unless the hunter is well concealed the animal is almost sure to discover him and to crawl silently away before he has got the chance of a shot.

THE OUNCE

This animal looks rather like a leopard with very light-colored fur. But the rosette-like spots are a good deal larger, the fur is very much longer and thicker, and the tail is almost as bushy as that of a Persian cat. The reason why the fur is so thick is that the ounce lives in very cold countries. It is found high up in the mountains of Central Asia, ascending during the summer to a height of perhaps eighteen thousand feet--a good deal higher than the summit of Mont Blanc--and coming down to the lower levels in winter. In other words, it is hardly ever seen below the snow-line, and is often known as the snow-leopard. So it wants good thick, warm fur. We do not know very much about its habits, for it is a very difficult animal to watch in a state of nature. Very few people ever see it. But it seems to prey chiefly upon wild goats, wild sheep, and those odd little burrowing animals that we call marmots, and also upon domesticated sheep and cattle which are sent up to graze on the higher slopes of the mountains. It is said never to venture to attack man.

THE JAGUAR

Still more like a leopard is the jaguar, which lives in Central and South America. But you can tell it at once by looking at the rosette-like marks on its body, most of which have either one or two small patches of dark brown fur in the middle. It also has three or four bold black streaks across its breast, which are never seen in the leopard. And its tail is ever so much shorter, the tip scarcely reaching to the ground when the animal is standing upright.

The jaguar is perhaps even a better climber than the leopard, and seems far more at its ease among the branches than on the ground. Indeed, there are some parts of the great swampy forests of Brazil in which the animal is said never to descend to the ground at all, but to spend its whole life in the trees which stand so close side by side that it can easily spring from one to another. You wonder, perhaps, what it feeds upon. Why, upon monkeys, and very active indeed it has to be if it wishes to catch them. But then, when a band of monkeys discover a jaguar, they are never able to resist the temptation of getting as close to him as they dare, and chattering and screaming as loudly as they can, just to annoy him. Isn't that exactly like monkeys? But sometimes they venture a little _too_ close, and then with a sudden spring he seizes the nearest of his impudent tormentors and carries it shrieking away.

Birds, too, are often caught by the jaguar, who pounces upon them as they are roosting upon a branch. But he is not at all particular as to what he eats, and sometimes he will leave the trees altogether, and go hunting in the reed-beds by the riverside for capybaras, which we will describe farther on. He is very fond of these animals, for they are so slow in their movements that they cannot run away, so badly provided with natural weapons that they cannot fight, and so fat and delicate that they afford most excellent eating.

Then, just for a change, perhaps, he will stroll down to the sea-shore, and look for a good big turtle. When he sees one--which is generally a female on her way back to the water after laying her eggs in the sand--he seizes it suddenly with his fore paws, and turns it over on its back, so that it cannot possibly escape. Then, perhaps, if he is not very hungry, he leaves it for a little while. But soon he returns, and manages to scoop out all the flesh of the animal from between the shells by means of his long hooked talons, thrusting in his paw over and over again, till scarcely the smallest particle is left remaining.

Very likely, too, he will find the spot where the turtle had laid her eggs, dig them up, and devour them as well. Sometimes he will crouch on the bank of a stream, quite close to the water, and hook out the fish that pass by with his claws. And when he is very hungry indeed he will eat lizards and even insects.

Like the ounce, however, the jaguar seldom or never ventures to attack a human being, although he will fight savagely if he is driven to bay. But he will often spring upon horses and cattle, and in such cases he nearly always kills them by seizing their heads between his front paws, and giving a sudden wrench sideways and upward so as to break their necks.

Like most of the cats, the jaguar has a fondness for scratching the trunks of trees, and sometimes a tree may be found with gashes in its bark an inch deep and more than a yard long.

THE PUMA, OR COUGAR

Next to the jaguar, the puma is the largest of the American cats, a full-grown male being sometimes as much as eight feet in total length, of which about three feet is taken up by the tail. In color it is tawny brown, becoming lighter on the lower surface, and without any spots at all. But the odd thing is that its young are marked all over with large blotches of blackish brown, while their tails are ringed with black like that of the tiger. And these markings do not disappear until they are more than six months old.

The puma is found in almost all parts of the American continent, from British Columbia in the north to Patagonia in the south, and it is even said to have been seen in Tierra del Fuego. It spends some part of its life in the trees, being almost as good a climber as the jaguar. But it almost always hunts upon the ground, trying to creep stealthily up to its victim, and to spring upon it before its presence is even suspected.

It scarcely ever ventures to attack a man, but will often follow him for a long distance as though waiting an opportunity to pounce upon him unawares. But if he suddenly turns and faces the animal, it will always slink away, even if he is quite unarmed. Sometimes, too, it will allow itself to be killed without attempting to defend itself at all. So hunters have a rather poor opinion of its courage. The farmers, however, have very good reason for dreading the animal, for it is a terrible enemy to sheep, and has been known to kill as many as fifty in a single night. And it will also leap suddenly upon horses and cattle and break their necks, just as the jaguar does.

Although in some ways it is such a cowardly creature, the puma will often fight the jaguar itself. Of course it is the weaker animal of the two, but it is so exceedingly quick in its movements, and makes such excellent use of its teeth and talons, that in many cases it gets the best of the battle. Sometimes, when a jaguar is killed by a hunter, its back is found to be deeply scored all over by the claws of a puma.

In many parts of North America the puma is known as the panther, or "painter," also as the mountain lion, and it has other names besides.

THE CLOUDED LEOPARD

There is still one more of the larger cats which we must not pass by without mention, and that is the clouded leopard, or clouded tiger, which is found in the southeastern parts of Asia, and in the larger islands of the Malay Archipelago. In size it is about as big as a small leopard, and its yellow brown fur is marked with stripes like those of the tiger, spots like those of the leopard, rosettes like those of the jaguar, and blotches like those of the ocelots, while its tail is adorned with rings of glossy black. So, you see, it is a very handsome animal.

We do not know very much about its habits, but it seems to live almost entirely in the trees, and to prey chiefly upon birds, while those who have caught and tamed it say that it is very gentle and playful. The Malays call it the rimau-dahan, or "tree-tiger"; and there is a smaller variety, found in the same localities, which is generally known as the marbled cat.