CHAPTER II.

_THE CAT TRIBE._

Though only one species is entirely domesticated, and none of the Cats have flesh edible by man, except perhaps the puma, no group of animals has attracted more interest than this. Containing more than forty species, ranging in size from the ox-devouring tiger or lion to the small wild cats, they are so alike in habit and structure that no one could possibly mistake the type or go far wrong in guessing at the habits of any one of them. They are all flesh-eaters and destroyers of living animals. All have rounded heads, and an extraordinary equipment of teeth and of claws, and of muscles to use them. The blow of the forearm of a lion or tiger is inconceivably powerful, in proportion to its size. A stroke from a tiger's paw has been known to strike off a native's arm from the shoulder and leave it hanging by a piece of skin, and a similar blow from a lion to crush the skull of an ox. The true cats are known by the power to draw back, or "retract," their claws into sheaths of horn, rendering their footsteps noiseless, and keeping these weapons always sharp. The hunting-leopard has only a partial capacity for doing this.

The characteristics of the Cats and their allies are too well known to need description. We will therefore only mention the chief types of the group, and proceed to give, in the fullest detail which space allows, authentic anecdotes of their life and habits. The tribe includes Lions, Tigers, Leopards, Pumas, Jaguars, a large number of so-called Tiger-cats (spotted and striped), Wild Cats, Domestic Cats, and Lynxes. The Hunting-leopard, or Cheeta, stands in a sub-group by itself, as does the Fossa, the only large carnivore of Madagascar. This closes the list of the most cat-like animals. The next links in the chain are formed by the Civets and Genets, creatures with more or less retractile claws, and long, bushy tails; the still less cat-like Binturong, a creature with a prehensile tail; and the Mongooses and Ichneumons, more and more nearly resembling the weasel tribe.

THE LION.

Recent intrusions for railways, sport, discovery, and war into Central and East Africa have opened up new lion countries, and confirmed, in the most striking manner, the stories of the power, the prowess, and the dreadful destructiveness to man and beast of this king of the Carnivora. At present it is found in Persia, on the same rivers where Nimrod and the Assyrian kings made its pursuit their royal sport; in Gujerat, where it is nearly extinct, though in General Price's work on Indian game written before the middle of the last century it is stated that a cavalry officer killed eighty lions in three years; and in Africa, from Algeria to the Bechuana country. It is especially common in Somaliland, where the modern lion-hunter mainly seeks his sport. On the Uganda Railway, from Mombasa to Lake Victoria, lions are very numerous and dangerous. In Rhodesia and the Northern Transvaal they have killed hunters, railway officials, and even our soldiers near Komati Poort. It has been found that whole tracts of country are still often deserted by their inhabitants from fear of lions, and that the accounts of their ravages contained in the Old Testament, telling how Samaria was almost deserted a second time from this cause, might be paralleled to-day.

THE AFRICAN LION.

BY F. C. SELOUS.

When, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, Europeans first settled at the Cape of Good Hope, the lion's roar was probably to be heard almost nightly on the slopes of Table Mountain, since a quaint entry in the Diary of Van Riebeck, the first Dutch governor of the Cape, runs thus: "This night the lions roared as if they would take the fort by storm"--the said fort being situated on the site of the city now known as Cape Town.

At that date there can be little doubt that, excepting in the waterless deserts and the dense equatorial forests, lions roamed over the whole of the vast continent of Africa from Cape Agulhas to the very shore of the Mediterranean Sea; nor was their range very seriously curtailed until the spread of European settlements in North and South Africa, and the acquisition of firearms by the aboriginal inhabitants of many parts of the country, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, steadily denuded large areas of all wild game.

As the game vanished, the lions disappeared too; for although at first they preyed to a large extent on the domestic flocks and herds which gradually replaced the wild denizens of the once-uninhabited plains, this practice brought them into conflict with the white colonists or native herdsmen armed with weapons of precision, before whom they rapidly succumbed.

To-day lions are still to be found wherever game exists in any quantity, and their numbers will be in proportion to those of the wild animals on which they prey.

The indefinite increase of lions must be checked by some unknown law of nature, otherwise they would have become so numerous in the sparsely inhabited or altogether uninhabited parts of Africa, that they would first have exterminated all the game on which they had been wont to prey, and would then have had to starve or to have eaten one another. But such a state of things has never been known to occur; and whenever Europeans have entered a previously unexplored and uninhabited tract of country in Africa, and have found it teeming with buffaloes, zebras, and antelopes, they have always found lions in such districts very plentiful indeed, but never in such numbers as to seriously diminish the abundance of the game upon which they depended for food.

It is easy to understand that the increase of a herd of herbivorous animals would be regulated by the amount of the food-supply available, as well as constantly checked by the attacks of the large carnivora, such as lions, leopards, cheetas, hyænas, and wild dogs; but I have never been able to comprehend what has kept within bounds the inordinate increase of lions and other carnivorous animals in countries where for ages past they have had an abundant food-supply, and at the same time, having been almost entirely unmolested by human beings, have had no enemies. Perhaps such a state of things does not exist at the present day, but there are many parts of Africa where such conditions have existed from time immemorial up to within quite recent years.

Since lions were once to be found over the greater portion of the vast continent of Africa, it is self-evident that these animals are able to accommodate themselves to great variations of climate and surroundings; and I myself have met with them, close to the sea, in the hot and sultry coastlands of South-east Africa; on the high plateau of Mashonaland, where at an altitude of 6,000 feet above sea-level the winter nights are cold and frosty; amongst the stony hills to the east of the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi; and in the swamps of the Chobi. In the great reed-beds of the latter river a certain number of lions appeared to live constantly, preying on buffaloes and lechwe antelopes. I often heard them roaring at nights in these swamps, and I once saw two big male lions wading slowly across an open space between two beds of reeds in water nearly a foot in depth.

Although there are great individual differences in lions as regards size, general colour of coat, and more particularly in the length, colour, and profuseness of the mane with which the males are adorned, yet as these differences occur in every part of Africa where lions are met with, and since constant varieties with one fixed type of mane living by themselves and not interbreeding with other varieties do not exist anywhere, modern zoologists are, I think, now agreed that there is only one species of lion, since in any large series of wild lion skins, made in any particular district of Africa or Asia, every gradation will be found between the finest-maned specimens and those which are destitute of any mane at all. Several local races have, however, been recently described by German writers.

In the hot and steamy coastlands of tropical Africa lions usually have short manes, and never, I believe, attain the long silky black manes sometimes met with on the high plateaux of the interior. However, there is, I believe, no part of Africa where all or even the majority of male lions carry heavy manes, the long hair of which does not as a rule cover more than the neck and chest, with a tag of varying length and thickness extending from the back of the neck to between the shoulder-blades. Lions with very full black manes, covering the whole shoulders, are rare anywhere, but more likely to be encountered on the high plateaux, where the winter nights are extremely cold, than anywhere else. In such cases, in addition to the tufts of hair always found on the elbows and in the armpits of lions with fair-sized manes, there will probably be large tufts of hair in each flank just where the thighs join the belly; but I have never yet seen the skin of a lion shot within the last thirty years with the whole belly covered with long, thick hair, as may constantly be observed in lions kept in captivity in the menageries of Europe. There is, however, some evidence to show that, when lions existed on the high plains of the Cape Colony and the Orange River Colony, where the winter nights are much colder than in the countries farther north where lions may still be encountered, certain individuals of the species developed a growth of long hair all over the belly, as well as an extraordinary luxuriance of mane on the neck and shoulders.

From the foregoing remarks it will be seen that wild lions, having as a rule much less luxuriant manes than many examples of their kind to be seen in European menageries, are ordinarily not so majestic and dignified in appearance as many of their caged relatives. On the other hand, the wild lion is a much more alert and active animal than a menagerie specimen, and when in good condition is far better built and more powerful-looking, being free from all appearance of lankiness and weakness in the legs, and having strong, well-formed hindquarters. The eyes of the menagerie lion, too, look brown and usually sleepy, whilst those of the wild animal are yellow, and extraordinarily luminous even after death. When wounded and standing at bay, with head held low between his shoulders, growling hoarsely, and with twitching tail, even if he is not near enough to be observed very closely, a lion looks a very savage and dangerous animal; but should he be wounded in such a way as to admit of a near approach--perhaps by a shot that has paralysed his hindquarters--his flaming eyes will seem to throw out sparks of living fire.

Speaking generally, there is little or no danger in meeting a lion or lions in the daytime. Even in parts of the country where firearms are unknown, and where the natives seldom or never interfere with them, these animals seem to have an instinctive fear of man, and even when encountered at the carcase of an animal freshly killed, and at a time when they may be supposed to be hungry, they will almost invariably retreat before the unwelcome presence, sometimes slowly and sulkily, but in districts where much hunting with firearms has been going on at a very rapid pace. However, I have known of two cases of Europeans mounted on horseback having been attacked by lions in broad daylight, and Dr. Livingstone mentions a third. In one of the instances which came within my own knowledge, a lion sprang at a Boer hunter as he was riding slowly along, carrying an elephant-gun in his right hand and followed by a string of natives on foot. The lion attacked from the left side, and with its right paw seized my friend from behind by the right side of his face and neck, inflicting deep gashes with its sharp claws, one of which cut right through his cheek and tore out one of his teeth. My friend was pulled from his horse, but, clutching the loosely girthed saddle tightly with his knees, it twisted round under the horse's belly before he fell to the ground. Instead of following up its success, the lion, probably scared by the shouting of the Kaffirs, trotted away for a short distance, and then turned and stood looking at the dismounted hunter, who, never having lost his presence of mind, immediately shot it dead with his heavy old muzzle-loading elephant-gun. Besides these three instances of Europeans having been attacked in the daytime by lions, I have known of a certain number of natives having been killed in broad daylight. Such incidents are, however, by no means every-day occurrences, and, speaking generally, it may be said that the risk of molestation by lions in Africa during daylight is very small. It is by night that lions roam abroad with stealthy step in search of prey; and at such times they are often, when hungry, incredibly bold and daring. I have known them upon several occasions to enter a hunter's camp, and, regardless of fires, to seize oxen and horses and human beings.

During the year following the first occupation of Mashonaland in 1890, a great deal of damage was done by lions, which could not resist the attractions of the settlers' live stock. For the first few months I kept as accurate an account as I could of the number of horses, donkeys, oxen, sheep, goats, and pigs which were killed by lions, and it soon mounted up to over 200 head. During the same time several white men were also mauled by lions, and one unfortunate man named Teale was dragged from beneath the cart, where he was sleeping by the side of a native driver, and at once killed and eaten. Several of the horses were killed inside rough shelters serving as stables. In the following year (1891) over 100 pigs were killed in one night by a single lioness. These pigs were in a series of pens, separated one from another, but all under one low thatched roof. The lioness forced her way in between two poles, and apparently was unable, after having satisfied her hunger, to find her way out again, and, becoming angry and frightened, wandered backwards and forwards through the pens, killing almost all the pigs, each one with a bite at the back of the head or neck. This lioness, which had only eaten portions of two young pigs, made her escape before daylight, but was killed with a set gun the next night by the owner of the pigs.

When lions grow old, they are always liable to become man-eaters. Finding their strength failing them, and being no longer able to hunt and pull down large antelopes or zebras, they are driven by hunger to killing small animals, such as porcupines, and even tortoises, or they may visit a native village and catch a goat, or kill a child or woman going for water; and finding a human being a very easy animal to catch and kill, an old lion which has once tasted human flesh will in all probability continue to be a man-eater until he is killed. On this subject, in his "Missionary Travels," Dr. Livingstone says: "A man-eater is invariably an old lion; and when he overcomes his fear of man so far as to come to villages for goats, the people remark, 'His teeth are worn; he will soon kill men.' They at once acknowledge the necessity of instant action, and turn out to kill him." It is the promptness with which measures are taken by the greater part of the natives of Southern Africa to put an end to any lion which may take to eating men that prevents these animals as a rule from becoming the formidable pests which man-eating tigers appear to be in parts of India. But man-eating lions in Africa are not invariably old animals. One which killed thirty-seven human beings in 1887, on the Majili River, to the north-west of the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, was, when at last he was killed, found to be an animal in the prime of life; whilst the celebrated man-eaters of the Tsavo River, in East Africa, were also apparently strong, healthy animals. These two man-eating lions caused such consternation amongst the Indian workmen on the Uganda Railway that the work of construction was considerably retarded, the helpless coolies refusing to remain any longer in a country where they were liable to be eaten on any night by a man-eating lion. Both these lions were at last shot by one of the engineers on the railway (Mr. J. H. Patterson), but not before they had killed and devoured twenty-eight Indian coolies and an unknown number of native Africans.

THE TIGER.

TIGERS are the "type animal" of Asia. They are found nowhere else. Lions were inhabitants, even in historic times, of Europe, and are still common on the Euphrates and in parts of Persia, just as they were when the Assyrian kings shot them with arrows from their hunting-chariots. They survived in Greece far later than the days when story says that Hercules slew the Nemean lion in the Peloponnesus, for the baggage-animals of Xerxes' army of invasion were attacked by lions near Mount Athos. But the tiger never comes, and never did come in historic times, nearer to Europe than the Caucasian side of the Caspian Sea. On the other hand, they range very far north. All our tiger-lore is Indian. There is scarcely a story of tigers to be found in English books of sport which deals with the animal north of the line of the Himalaya. These Chinese northern tigers and the Siberian tigers are far larger than those of India. They have long woolly coats, in order to resist the cold. Their skins are brought to London in hundreds every year to the great fur-sales. But the animals themselves we never see. The present writer was informed by a friend that in the Amur Valley he shot three of these tigers in a day, putting them up in thick bush-scrub by the aid of dogs.

The ROYAL BENGAL TIGER, so called, and very properly called in the old books of natural history, is a different and far more savage beast. It is almost _invariably_ a ferocious savage, fierce by nature, never wishing to be otherwise than a destroyer--of beasts mainly, but often of men. Compared with the lion, it is far longer, but rather lighter, for the lion is more massive and compact. "A well-grown tigress," says Sir Samuel Baker, "may weigh on an average 240 lbs. live weight. A very fine tiger may weigh 440 lbs., but if fat the same tiger would weigh 500 lbs. There may be tigers which weigh 50 lbs. more than this; but I speak according to my experience. I have found that a tiger of 9 feet 8 inches is about 2 inches above the average. The same skin may be _stretched_ to measure 10 feet. A tiger in the Zoological Gardens is a long, lithe creature with little flesh. Such a specimen affords a poor example of this grand animal in its native jungles, with muscles in their full, ponderous development from continual exertion in nightly travels over long distances, and in mortal struggles when wrestling with its prey. A well-fed tiger is by no means a slim figure. On the contrary, it is exceedingly bulky, broad in the shoulders, back, and loins, and with an extraordinary girth of limbs, especially in the forearms and wrists."

This ponderous, active, and formidably armed creature is, as might be expected, able to hold its own wherever Europeans do not form part of the regular population. In India the peasants are quite helpless even against a cattle-killing tiger in a populous part of the country. In the large jungles, and on the islands at the mouths of the great rivers, the tigers have things all their own way. Things are no better in the Far East. A large peninsula near Singapore is said to have been almost abandoned by its cultivators lately, owing to the loss of life caused by the tigers. In the populous parts of India the tiger is far more stealthy than in the out-of-the-way districts. It only hunts by night; and after eating a part of the animal killed, moves off to a distance, and does not return. Otherwise the regular habit is to return to the kill just at or after dusk, and finish the remainder. Its suspicions seem quite lulled to sleep after dark. Quite recently a sportsman sat up to watch for a tiger at a water-hole. It was in the height of the Indian hot season, when very little water was left. All the creatures of that particular neighbourhood were in the habit of coming to drink at one good pool still left in the rocky bed of the river. There the tigers came too. The first night they did not come until all the other creatures--hog, deer, peacocks, and monkeys--had been down to drink. They then came so softly over the sand that the gunner in waiting did not hear them pass. His first knowledge that they were there was due to the splashing they made as they entered the water. It was quite dark, and he felt not a little nervous, for the bush on which he was seated on a small platform was only some 10 feet high. He heard the two tigers pass him, not by their footsteps, but by the dripping of the water as it ran off their bodies on to the sand. Next night they came again. This time, though it was dark, he shot one in a very ingenious manner. The two tigers walked into the water, and apparently lay down or sat down in it, with their heads out. They only moved occasionally, lapping the water, but did not greatly disturb the surface. On this was reflected a bright star from the sky above. The sportsman put the sight of the rifle on the star, and kept it up to his shoulder. Something obliterated the star, and he instantly fired. The "something" was the tiger's head, which the bullet duly hit.

The hill-tigers of India are, or were, much more given to hunting by day than the jungle-tigers. In the Nilgiri Hills of Southern India the late General Douglas Hamilton said that before night the tigers were already about hunting, and that in the shade of evening it was dangerous to ride on a pony--not because the tigers wished to kill the rider, but because they might mistake the pony and its rider for a sambar deer. He was stalked like this more than once. Often, when stalking sambar deer and ibex by day, he saw the tigers doing the same, or after other prey. "My brother Richard," he writes, "was out after a tiger which the hillmen reported had killed a buffalo about an hour before. He saw the tiger on first getting to the ground, and the tiger had seen him. It was lying out in the open watching the buffalo, and shuffled into the wood, and would not come out again. Next morning, when we got to the ground, the tiger was moving from rock to rock, and had dragged the body into a nullah.... We were upon the point of starting home when we observed a number of vultures coming down to the carcase. The vultures began to collect in large numbers on the opposite hill. I soon counted fifty; but they would not go near the buffalo. Then some crows, bolder than the rest, flew down, and made a great row over their meal. All of a sudden they all flew up, and I made certain it was the tiger. Then my brother fired, and there he was, shot right through the brain, lying just above the buffalo. He had been brought down by the noise the crows were making. Upon driving the _sholas_ (small woods on these hills), tigers were often put out. Sometimes they availed themselves of the drive to secure food for themselves. A wood was being driven, when a tremendous grunting was heard, and out rushed an old boar, bristling and savage. B---- was about to raise his rifle, when a growl like thunder stopped him, and a great tiger with one spring cleared the nullah, and alighted on the back of the old boar. Such a battle then took place that, what with the growls of the tiger and the squeals of the boar, one might believe oneself in another world. I thought of nothing but of how to kill one or the other, or both; so, as they were rolling down over and over, about fifty yards from me on the open hillside, I let fly both barrels. For a second or two the noise went on; then the tiger jumped off, and the boar struggled into the nullah close by. The tiger pulled up, and coolly stared at us without moving; but his courage seemed to fail him, and he sprang into the nullah and disappeared."

In most parts of India tigers are now scarce and shy, except in the preserves of the great rajas, and the dominions of some mighty and pious Hindu potentates, such as the Maharaja of Jeypur, who, being supposed to be descended from a Hindu god, allows no wild animals to be killed. There the deer and pig are so numerous that tigers are welcome to keep them down. But the Sunderbunds, unwholesome islands at the Ganges mouth, still swarm with them. So does the Malay Peninsula.

Mr. J. D. Cobbold shot a tiger in Central Asia in a swamp so deep in snow and so deadly cold that he dared not stay for fear of being frozen to death. Tigers sometimes wander as far west as the Caucasus near the Caspian. The farther north, the larger your tiger, is the rule. The biggest ever seen in Europe was a Siberian tiger owned by Herr Carl Hagenbeck, of Hamburg, and the largest known skin and skull is from the Far North. The skin is 13 feet 6 inches from the nose to the end of the tail. The largest Indian tiger-skin, from one killed by the Maharaja of Cuch Behar, measures 11 feet 7 inches.

LEOPARDS.

Less in size, but even more ferocious, the LEOPARD has a worse character than the tiger. Living mainly in trees, and very nocturnal, this fierce and dangerous beast is less often seen than far rarer animals. It is widely spread over the world, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Atlas Mountains, and from Southern China to the Black Sea, where it is sometimes met with in the Caucasus. There seems to be no legend of its presence in Greece, Italy, or Spain; but it was quite common in Asia Minor; and Cicero, when governor of Cilicia, was plagued by an aristocratic young friend in Rome to send him leopards to exhibit in a fête he was giving.

Any one who has frequented the Zoo for any time must have noticed the difference in size and colour between leopards from different parts of the world. On some the ground-colour is almost white, in others a clear nut-brown. Others are jet-black. Wherever they live, they are cattle thieves, sheep thieves, and dog thieves. Though not formidable in appearance, they are immensely strong. Sometimes one will turn man-eater. Both in India and lately in Africa cases have been known where they have "set up" in this line as deliberately as any tiger. They have four or five young at a birth, which may often be kept tame for some time and are amusing pets. But the following plain story shows the danger of such experiments. At Hong-kong an English merchant had a tame leopard, which was brought into the room by a coolie for the guests to see at a dinner party. Excited by the smell of food, it refused to go out when one of the ladies, who did not like its looks, wished for it to be removed. The man took hold of its collar and began to haul it out. It seized him by the neck, bit it through, and in a minute the coolie was dying, covered with blood, on the dining-room floor!

The Chinese leopard ranges as far north as the Siberian tiger, and, like the latter, seems to grow larger the farther north it is found. The colour of these northern leopards is very pale, the spots large, and the fur very long. At the March fur-sales of the present year, held at the stores of Sir Charles Lampson, there were Siberian leopard-skins as large as those of a small tiger.

Leopards are essentially tree-living and nocturnal animals. Sleeping in trees or caves by day, they are seldom disturbed. They do an incredible amount of mischief among cattle, calves, sheep, and dogs, being especially fond of killing and eating the latter. They seize their prey by the throat, and cling with their claws until they succeed in breaking the spine or in strangling the victim. The largest leopards are popularly called PANTHERS. In India they sometimes become man-eaters, and are always very dangerous. They have a habit of feeding on putrid flesh; this makes wounds inflicted by their teeth or claws liable to blood-poisoning. Nothing in the way of prey comes amiss to them, from a cow in the pasture to a fowl up at roost. "In every country," says Sir Samuel Baker, "the natives are unanimous in saying that the leopard is more dangerous than the lion or tiger. Wherever I have been in Africa, the natives have declared that they had no fear of a lion, provided they were not hunting, for it would not attack unprovoked, but that a leopard was never to be trusted. I remember when a native boy, accompanied by his grown-up brother, was busily employed with others in firing the reeds on the opposite bank of a small stream. Being thirsty and hot, the boy stooped down to drink, when he was immediately seized by a leopard. His brother, with admirable aim, hurled his spear at the leopard while the boy was in his jaws. The point separated the vertebræ of the neck, and the leopard fell stone-dead. The boy was carried to my hut, but there was no chance of recovery. The fangs had torn open the chest and injured the lungs. These were exposed to view through the cavity of the ribs. He died the same night."

In the great mountain-ranges of Central Asia the beautiful SNOW-LEOPARD is found. It is a large creature, with thick, woolly coat, and a long tail like a fur boa. The colour is white, clouded with beautiful grey, like that of an Angora cat. The edges of the cloudings and spots are marked with black or darker grey. The eyes are very large, bluish grey or smoke-coloured. It lives on the wild sheep, ibex, and other mountain animals. In captivity it is far the tamest and gentlest of the large carnivora, not excepting the puma. Unlike the latter, it is a sleepy, quiet animal, like a domestic cat. The specimen shown here belonged to a lady in India, who kept it for some time as a pet. It was then brought to the Zoological Gardens, where it was more amiable and friendly than most cats. The writer has entered its cage with the keeper, stroked it, and patted its head, without in the least ruffling its good-temper. The heat of the lion-house did not suit it, and it died of consumption.

THE NEW WORLD CATS.

The cats, great and small, of the New World resemble those of the Old, though not quite so closely as the caribou, wapiti deer, and moose of the northern forests resemble the reindeer, red deer, and elk of Europe. They are like, but with a difference. The Jaguar and the Ocelot are respectively larger and far more beautiful than their counterparts, the leopard and serval cats. But the Puma, the one medium-sized feline animal which is unspotted, is something unique. The jaguar and puma are found very far south in South America; and though the jaguar is really a forest animal, it seems to have wandered out on to the Pampas of Argentina, perhaps attracted by the immense numbers of cattle, sheep, and horses on these plains.

THE JAGUAR.

The JAGUAR is as savage as it is formidable, but does not often attack men. Its headquarters are the immense forests running from Central America to Southern Brazil; and as all great forests are little inhabited, the jaguar is seldom encountered by white men. By the banks of the great rivers it is semi-aquatic; it swims and climbs with equal ease, and will attack animals on board boats anchored in the rivers. As there are few animals of great size in these forests, its great strength is not often seen exercised, as is that of the lion; but it is the personification of concentrated force, and its appearance is well worth studying from that point of view. The spots are larger and squarer than in the leopard, the head ponderous, the forearms and feet one mass of muscle, knotted under the velvet skin. On the Amazons it draws its food alike from the highest tree-tops and the river-bed; in the former it catches monkeys in the branches, fish in the shallows of the rivers, and scoops out turtles' eggs from the sandbanks. Humboldt, who visited these regions when the white population was scarce, declared that 4,000 jaguars were killed annually, and 2,000 skins exported from Buenos Ayres alone. It was clearly common on the Pampas in his day, and made as great havoc among the cattle and horses as it does to-day.

THE PUMA.

The PUMA is a far more interesting creature. It is found from the mountains in Montana, next the Canadian boundary, to the south of Patagonia. Yankee stories of its ferocity may have some foundation; but the writer believes there is no recorded instance of the northern puma attacking man unprovoked, though in the few places where it now survives it kills cattle-calves and colts. It is relentlessly hunted with dogs, treed, and shot. As to the puma of the southern plains and central forests, the natives, whether Indians or Gauchos, agree with the belief, steadily handed down from the days of the first Spanish conquest, that the puma is the one wild cat which is naturally friendly to man. The old Spaniards called it _amigo del Cristiano_ (the Christian's friend); and Mr. Hudson, in "The Naturalist in La Plata," gives much evidence of this most curious and interesting tendency: "It is notorious that where the puma is the only large beast of prey it is perfectly safe for a small child to go out and sleep on the plain.... The puma is always at heart a kitten, taking unmeasured delight in its frolics; and when, as often happens, one lives alone in the desert, it will amuse itself for hours fighting mock battles or playing hide-and-seek with imaginary companions, or lying in wait and putting all its wonderful strategy in practice to capture a passing butterfly." From Azara downwards these stories have been told too often not to be largely true; and in old natural histories, whose writers believed the puma was a terrible man-eater, they also appear as "wonderful escapes." One tells how a man put his _poncho_, or cloak, over his back when crawling up to get a shot at some duck, and felt something heavy on the end of it. He crept from under it, and there was a puma sitting on it, which did not offer to hurt him.

As space forbids further quotation from Mr. Hudson's experiences, which should be read, the writer will only add one anecdote which was told him by Mr. Everard im Thurn, C.B., formerly an official in British Guiana. He was going up one of the big rivers in his steam-launch, and gave a passage to an elderly and respectable Cornish miner, who wanted to go up to a gold-mine. The visitor had his meals on the boat, but at night went ashore with the men and slung his hammock between two trees, leaving the cabin to his host. One morning two of the Indian crew brought the miner's hammock on board with a good deal of laughing and talking. Their master asked what the joke was, whereupon, pointing to the trees whence they had unslung the hammock, one said, "Tiger sleep with old man last night." They were quite in earnest, and pointed out a hollow and marks on the leaves, which showed that a puma had been lying _just under the man's hammock_. When asked if he had noticed anything in the night, he said, "Only the frogs croaking wakened me up." The croaking of the frogs was probably the hoarse purring of the friendly puma enjoying his proximity to a sleeping man. Mr. Hudson quotes a case in which four pumas played round and leapt over a person camping out on the Pampas. He watched them for some time, and then went to sleep! Many of those brought to this country come with their tempers ruined by ill-treatment and hardship; but a large proportion are as tame as cats. Captain Marshall had one at Marlow which used to follow him on a chain and watch the boats full of pleasure-seekers at the lock.

The puma is always a beautiful creature,--the fur cinnamon-coloured, tinged with gold; the belly and chest white; the tail long, full, and round. Though friendly to man, it is a desperate cattle-killer, and particularly fond of horse-flesh, so much so that it has been suggested that the indigenous wild horses of America were destroyed by the puma.

There are two other cats of the Pampas--the GRASS-CAT, not unlike our wild cat in appearance and habits, and the WOOD-CAT, or Geoffroy's Cat. It is a tabby, and a most elegant creature, of which there is a specimen, at the time of writing, in the London Zoo.

THE OCELOT.

In the forest region is also found the most beautiful of the medium-sized cats. This is the OCELOT, which corresponds somewhat to the servals, but is not the least like a lynx, as the servals are. It is entirely a tree-cat, and lives on birds and monkeys. The following detailed description of its coloration appeared in "Life at the Zoo":--

"Its coat, with the exception perhaps of that of the clouded leopard of Sumatra, marks the highest development of ornament among four-footed animals. The Argus pheasant alone seems to offer a parallel to the beauties of the ocelot's fur, especially in the development of the wonderful ocelli, which, though never reaching in the beast the perfect cup-and-ball ornament seen on the wings of the bird, can be traced in all the early stages of spots and wavy lines, so far as the irregular shell-shaped rim and dot on the feet, sides, and back, just as in the subsidiary ornament of the Argus pheasant's feathers. Most of the ground-tint of the fur is smoky-pearl colour, on which the spots develop from mere dots on the legs and speckles on the feet and toes to large egg-shaped ocelli on the flanks. There are also two beautiful pearl-coloured spots on the back of each ear, like those which form the common ornaments of the wings of many moths."

The nose is pink; the eye large, convex, and translucent.

A tame ocelot described by Wilson, the American naturalist, was most playful and affectionate, but when fed with flesh was less tractable. It jumped on to the back of a horse in the stable, and tried to curl up on its hindquarters. The horse threw the ocelot off and kicked it, curing it of any disposition to ride. On seeing a horse, the ocelot always ran off to its kennel afterwards. When sent to England, it caught hold of and threw down a child of four years old, whom it rolled about with its paws without hurting it.

OTHER WILD CATS.

A handsome leopard-like animal is the CLOUDED LEOPARD. It is the size of a small common leopard, but far gentler in disposition. Its fur is not spotted, but marked with clouded patches, outlined in grey and olive-brown. Its skin is among the most beautiful of the Cats. It is found in the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, Formosa, and along the foot of the Himalaya from Nepal to Assam. Writing of two which he kept, Sir Stamford Raffles said: "No kitten could be more good-tempered. They were always courting intercourse with persons passing by, and in the expression of their countenance showed the greatest delight when noticed, throwing themselves on their backs, and delighting in being tickled and rubbed. On board ship there was a small dog, which used to play around the cage with the animal. It was amusing to watch the tenderness and playfulness with which the latter came in contact with its smaller-sized companion." Both specimens were procured from the banks of the Bencoolin River, in Sumatra. They are generally found near villages, and are not dreaded by the natives, except in so far that they destroy their poultry.

The number of smaller leopard-cats and tiger-cats is very great. They fall, roughly, into three groups: those which are yellow and spotted, those which are grey and spotted, and those which are grey and striped, or "whole-coloured." There is no wholly grey wild cat, but several sandy-coloured species. All live on birds and small mammals, and probably most share the tame cat's liking for fish. Among the grey-and-spotted cats are the MOTTLED CAT of the Eastern Himalaya and Straits Settlements and islands; the TIBETIAN TIGER-CAT; the FISHING-CAT of India and Ceylon, which is large enough to kill lambs, but lives much on fish and large marsh-snails; GEOFFROY'S CAT, an American species; the LEOPARD-CAT of Java and Japan, which seems to have grey fur in Japan and a fulvous leopard-like skin in India, where it is also called the TIGER-CAT; and the smallest of all wild cats, the little RUSTY-SPOTTED CAT of India. This has rusty spots on a grey ground. "I had a kitten brought to me," says Dr. Jerdon of the species, "when very young. It became quite tame, and was the delight and admiration of all who saw it. When it was about eight months old, I introduced the fawn of a gazelle into the room where it was. The little creature flew at it the moment it saw it, seized it by the nape of the neck, and was with difficulty taken off." Of the whole-coloured wild cats--which include the BAY CAT, the American PAMPAS-CAT, PALLAS' CAT of Tibet and India--the most beautiful is the GOLDEN CAT of Sumatra, one of which is now in the Zoological Gardens. It has a coat the colour of gold-stone. The nose is pink, the eyes large and topaz-coloured, the cheeks striped with white, and the under-parts and lower part of the tail pure white.

Four kinds of wild cats are known in South Africa, of which the largest is the SERVAL, a short-tailed, spotted animal, with rather more woolly fur than the leopard's. The length is about 4 feet 2 inches, of which the tail is only 12 inches. It is found from Algeria to the Cape; but its favourite haunts, like those of all the wild cats of hot countries, are in the reeds by rivers. It kills hares, rats, birds, and small mammals generally.

The BLACK-FOOTED WILD CAT is another African species. It is a beautiful spotted-and-lined tabby, the size of a small domestic cat, and as likely as any other to be the origin of our tabby variety, if tame cats came to Europe from Africa. At present it is only found south in the Kalahari Desert and Bechuanaland.

The KAFFIR CAT is the common wild cat of the Cape Colony, and a very interesting animal. It is a whole-coloured tawny, upstanding animal, with all the indifference to man and generally independent character of the domestic tom-cat. It is, however, much stronger than the tame cats, with which it interbreeds freely. In the Colony it is often difficult to keep male tame cats, for the wild Kaffir cats come down and fight them in the breeding-season. The Egyptian cat is really the same animal, slightly modified by climate. A very distinct species is the JUNGLE-CAT, ranging from India, through Baluchistan, Syria, and East Africa, and called in Hindustani the CHAUS. The European striped wild cat extends to the Himalaya, where the range of the lion-coloured, yellow-eyed chaus begins. The chaus has a few black bars inside the legs, which vary in different regions. The Indian chaus has only one distinctly marked; the Kaffir cat has four or five. The EGYPTIAN FETTERED CAT has been said to be the origin of the domestic and sacred cats of Egypt. A male chaus is most formidable when "cornered." General Hamilton chased one, which had prowled into the cantonments on the look-out for fowls, into a fence. "After a long time I spied the cat squatting in a hedge," he writes, "and called for the dogs. When they came, I knelt down and began clapping my hands and cheering them on. The cat suddenly made a clean spring at my face. I had just time to catch it as one would a cricket-ball, and, giving its ribs a strong squeeze, threw it to the dogs; but not before it had made its teeth meet in my arm just above the wrist. For some weeks I had to carry my arm in a sling, and I shall carry the marks of the bite to my grave."

The chaus, as will be seen from the above, wanders boldly down into the outskirts of large towns, cantonments, and bungalows, on the look-out for chickens and pigeons. Its favourite plan is to lie up at dawn in some piece of thick cover near to where the poultry wander out to scratch, feed, and bask. It then pounces on the nearest unhappy hen and rushes off with it into cover. An acquaintance of the writer once had a number of fine Indian game fowl, of which he was not a little proud. He noticed that one was missing every morning for three days, and, not being able to discover the robber, shut them up in a hen-house. Next morning he heard a great commotion outside, and one of his bearers came running in to say that a leopard was in the hen-house. As this was only built of bamboo or some such light material, it did not seem probable that a leopard would stay there. Getting his rifle, he went out into the compound, and cautiously approached the hen-house, in which the fowls were still making loud protests and cries of alarm. The door was shut; but some creature--certainly not a leopard--might have squeezed in through the small entrance used by the hens. He opened the door, and saw at the back of the hen-house a chaus sitting, with all its fur on end, looking almost as large as a small leopard. On the floor was one dead fowl. The impudent jungle-cat rushed for the door, but had the coolness to seize the hen as it passed, and with this in its mouth rushed past the owner of the hens, his servants and retainers, and reached a piece of thick scrub near with its prize.

As the chaus is common both in India and Africa, a comparison of its habits in both continents is somewhat interesting. Jerdon, the Indian naturalist, writes: "It is the common wild cat from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, and from the level of the sea to 7,000 or 8,000 feet elevation. It frequents alike the jungles and the open country, and is very partial to long reeds, and grass, sugarcane-fields, and corn-fields. It does much damage to all game, especially to hares and partridges. Quite recently I shot a pea-fowl at the edge of a sugarcane-field. One of these cats sprang out, seized the pea-fowl, and after a short struggle--for the bird was not quite dead--carried it off before my astonished eyes, and, in spite of my running up, made his escape with his booty. It must have been stalking these very birds, so closely did its spring follow my shot. It is said to breed twice a year, and to have three or four young at a birth. I have very often had the young brought to me, but always failed in rearing them; and they always showed a savage and untamable disposition. I have seen numbers of cats about villages in various parts of the country that must have been hybrids between this cat and the tame ones."

The late Sir Oliver St. John was more fortunate with his jungle-cat kittens. He obtained three in Persia. These he reared till they were three months old, by which time they became so tame that they would climb on to his knees at breakfast-time, and behave like ordinary kittens. One was killed by a greyhound, and another by a scorpion--a curious fate for a kitten to meet. The survivor then became morose and ill-tempered, but grew to be a large and strong animal. "Two English bull-terriers of mine, which would make short work of the largest domestic cat, could do nothing against my wild cat," says the same writer. "In their almost daily battles the dogs always got the worst of it."

In Africa the chaus haunts the thick cover bordering the rivers. There it catches not only water-fowl, but also fish. According to Messrs. Nicolls and Eglington, "its spoor may constantly be seen imprinted on the mud surrounding such pools in the periodical watercourses as are constantly being dried up, and in which fish may probably be imprisoned without chance of escape." The chaus has for neighbour in Africa the beautiful SERVAL, a larger wild cat. This species is reddish in colour, spotted on the body, and striped on the legs. The ears are long, but not tufted, like those of the lynx. The serval is more common in North and Central Africa than in the South. But it is also found south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Messrs. Nicolls and Eglington say of it: "Northward through South Central Africa it is fairly common. It frequents the thick bush in the vicinity of rivers. The _karosses_, or mantles, made from its skins are only worn by the chiefs and very high dignitaries amongst the native tribes, and are in consequence eagerly sought after, on which account the species runs a risk of rapid extermination. Its usual prey consists of the young of the smaller antelopes, francolins, and wild guinea-fowls, to the latter of which it is a most destructive enemy in the breeding-season. When obtained young, the serval can be tamed with little trouble; but it is difficult to rear, and always shows a singular and almost unaccountable aversion to black men. Its otherwise even temper is always aroused at the sight of a native. When in anger, it is by no means a despicable antagonist, and very few dogs would like to engage in a combat with one single-handed."

THE COMMON WILD CAT.

The WILD CAT was once fairly common all over England. A curious story, obviously exaggerated, shows that traditions of its ferocity were common at a very early date. The tale is told of the church of Barnborough, in Yorkshire, between Doncaster and Barnsley. It is said that a man and a wild cat met in a wood near and began to fight; that the cat drove the man out of the wood as far as the church, where he took refuge in the porch; and that both the man and cat were so injured that they died. According to Dr. Pearce, the event was formerly commemorated by a rude painting in the church.

Mr. Charles St. John had an experience with a Scotch wild cat very like that which General Douglas Hamilton tells of the jungle-cat. He heard many stories of their attacking and wounding men when trapped or when their escape was cut off, and before long found out that these were true. "I was fishing in a river in Sutherland," he wrote, "and in passing from one pool to another had to climb over some rocky ground. In doing so, I sank almost up to my knees in some rotten heather and moss, almost upon a wild cat which was concealed under it. I was quite as much startled as the cat itself could be, when I saw the wild-looking beast rush so unexpectedly from between my feet, with every hair on her body on end, making her look twice as large as she really was. I had three small Skye terriers with me, which immediately gave chase, and pursued her till she took refuge in a corner of the rocks, where, perched in a kind of recess out of reach of her enemies, she stood with her hair bristled out, spitting and growling like a common cat. Having no weapon with me, I laid down my rod, cut a good-sized stick, and proceeded to dislodge her. As soon as I was within six or seven feet of the place, she sprang straight at my face over the dogs' heads. Had I not struck her in mid-air as she leaped at me, I should probably have received a severe wound. As it was, she fell with her back half broken among the dogs, who with my assistance dispatched her. I never saw an animal fight so desperately, or one which was so difficult to kill. If a tame cat has nine lives, a wild cat must have a dozen. Sometimes one of these animals will take up its residence at no great distance from a house, and, entering the hen-roosts and outbuildings, will carry off fowls in the most audacious manner, or even lambs. Like other vermin, the wild cat haunts the shores of lakes and rivers, and it is therefore easy to know where to set a trap for them. Having caught and killed one of the colony, the rest of them are sure to be taken if the body of their slain relative is left in the same place not far from their usual hunting-ground and surrounded with traps, as every wild cat passing that way will to a certainty come to it."

The wild cat ranges from the far north of Scotland, across Europe and Northern Asia, to the northern slopes of the Himalaya. It has always been known as one of the fiercest and wildest of the cats, large or small. The continual ill-temper of these creatures is remarkable. In the experience of the keepers of menageries there is no other so intractably savage. One presented to the Zoological Gardens by Lord Lilford some eight years ago still snarls and spits at any one who comes near it, even the keeper.

The food of the wild cat is grouse, mountain-hares, rabbits, small birds, and probably fish caught in the shallow waters when chance offers. It is wholly nocturnal; consequently no one ever sees it hunting for prey. Though it has long been confined to the north and north-west of Scotland, it is by no means on the verge of extinction. The deer-forests are saving it to some extent, as they did the golden eagle. Grouse and hares are rather in the way when deer are being stalked; consequently the wild cat and the eagle are not trapped or shot. The limits of its present fastnesses were recently fixed by careful Scotch naturalists at the line of the Caledonian Canal. Mr. Harvie Brown, in 1880, said that it only survived in Scotland north of a line running from Oban to the junction of the three counties of Perth, Forfar, and Aberdeen, and thence through Banffshire to Inverness. But the conclusion of a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ of July, 1898, in a very interesting article on the survival of British mammals, has been happily contradicted. He believed that it only survived in the deer-forests of Inverness and Sutherlandshire. The wild cats shown in the illustrations of these pages were caught a year later as far south as Argyllshire. The father and two kittens were all secured, practically unhurt, and purchased by Mr. Percy Leigh Pemberton for his collection of British mammals at Ashford, in Kent. This gentleman has had great success in preserving his wild cats. They, as well as others--martens, polecats, and other small carnivora--are fed on fresh wild rabbits killed in a warren near; consequently they are in splendid condition. The old "tom" wild cat, snarling with characteristic ill-humour, was well supported by the wild and savage little kittens, which exhibited all the family temper. Shortly before the capture of these wild cats another family were trapped in Aberdeenshire and brought to the Zoological Gardens. Four kittens, beautiful little savages, with bright green eyes, and uninjured, were safely taken to Regent's Park. But the quarters given them were very small and cold, and they all died. Two other full-grown wild cats brought there a few years earlier were so dreadfully injured by the abominable steel traps in which they were caught that they both died of blood-poisoning.

The real wild cats differ in their markings on the body, some being more clearly striped, while others are only brindled. But they are all alike in the squareness and thickness of head and body, and in the short tail, ringed with black, and growing larger at the tip, which ends off like a shaving-brush.

It may well be asked, Which of the many species of wild cats mentioned above is the ancestor of our domestic cats? Probably different species in different countries. The African Kaffir cat, the Indian leopard-cat, the rusty-spotted cat of India, and the European wild cat all breed with tame cats. It is therefore probable that the spotted, striped, and brindled varieties of tame cats are descended from wild species which had those markings. The so-called red tame cats are doubtless descended from the tiger-coloured wild cats. But it is a curious fact that, though the spotted grey-tabby wild varieties are the least common, that colour is most frequent in the tame species.

THE LYNXES.

In the LYNXES we seem to have a less specially cat-like form. They are short-tailed, high in the leg, and broad-faced. Less active than the leopards and tiger-cats, and able to live either in very hot or very cold countries, they are found from the Persian deserts to the far north of Siberia and Canada.

The CARACAL is a southern, hot-country lynx. It has a longer tail than the others, but the same tufted ears. It seems a link between the lynxes and the jungle-cats. It is found in India, Palestine, Persia, and Mesopotamia. In India it was trained, like the cheeta, to catch birds, gazelles, and hares. The COMMON LYNX is probably the same animal, whether found in Norway, Russia, the Carpathians, Turkestan, China, or Tibet. The CANADIAN LYNX is also very probably the same, with local differences of colour. The NORTHERN LYNX is the largest feline animal left in Europe, and kills sheep and goats equally with hares and squirrels. The beautiful fur, of pale cinnamon and light grey, is much admired. In some southern districts of America we have the RED LYNX, or so-called "wild cat," which is distinct from the lynx of Canada. The MEDITERRANEAN or SPANISH LYNX seems likewise entitled to rank as a distinct species.

Of the lynxes the CARACALS are perhaps the most interesting, from their capacity for domestication. They are found in Africa in the open desert country, whereas the SERVAL is found in the thick bush. In Africa it is believed to be the most savage and untamable of the Cats. That is probably because the Negro and the Kaffir never possessed the art of training animals, from the elephant downwards. In India the caracal's natural prey are the fawns of deer and antelope, pea-fowl, hares, and floricans. The caracal is the quickest with its feet of any of the Cats. One of its best-known feats is to spring up and catch birds passing over on the wing at a height of six or eight feet from the ground. A writer, in the Naturalist's Library, notes that, besides being tamed to catch deer, pea-fowl, and cranes, the caracal was used in "pigeon matches." Two caracals were backed one against the other to kill pigeons. The birds were fed on the ground, and the caracals suddenly let loose among them, to strike down as many as each could before the birds escaped. Each would sometimes strike down with its fore paws ten or a dozen pigeons. "Caracal" means in Turkish "Black Ear," in allusion to the colour of the animal's organ of hearing.

The COMMON LYNX is a thick-set animal, high in the leg, with a square head and very strong paws and forearms. It is found across the whole northern region of Europe and Asia. Although never known in Britain in historic times, it is still occasionally seen in parts of the Alps and in the Carpathians; it is also common in the Caucasus. It is mainly a forest animal, and very largely nocturnal; therefore it is seldom seen, and not often hunted. If any enemy approaches, the lynx lies perfectly still on some branch or rock, and generally succeeds in avoiding notice. The lynx is extremely active; it can leap great distances, and makes its attack usually in that way. When travelling, it trots or gallops in a very dog-like fashion. Where sheep graze at large on mountains, as in the Balkans and in Greece, the lynx is a great enemy of the flocks. In Norway, where the animal is now very rare, there is a tradition that it is more mischievous than the wolf, and a high price is set on its head.

In Siberia and North Russia most of the lynx-skins taken are sold to the Chinese. The lynx-skins brought to London are mainly those of the Canadian species. The fur is dyed, and used for the busbies of the officers in our hussar regiments. These skins vary much in colour, and in length and quality of fur. The price varies correspondingly. The Canadian lynx lives mainly on the wood-hares and on the wood-grouse of the North American forests. The flesh of the lynx is said to be good and tender.

Brehm says of the Siberian lynx: "It is a forest animal in the strictest sense of the word. But in Siberia it occurs only singly, and is rarely captured. Its true home is in the thickest parts in the interior of the woods, and these it probably never leaves except when scarcity of food or the calls of love tempt it to wander to the outskirts. Both immigrants and natives hold the hunting of the lynx in high esteem. This proud cat's activity, caution and agility, and powers of defence arouse the enthusiasm of every sportsman, and both skin and flesh are valued, the latter not only by the Mongolian tribes, but also by the Russian hunters. The lynx is seldom captured in fall-traps; he often renders them useless by walking along the beam and stepping on the lever, and he usually leaps over the spring-traps in his path. So only the rifle and dogs are left."

The RED LYNX is a small American variety, the coat of which turns tawny in summer, when it much resembles a large cat. It is called in some parts of the United States the Mountain-cat. This lynx is 30 inches long in the body, with a tail 6 inches long. It is found on the eastern or Atlantic side of the continent, and by no means shuns the neighbourhood of settlements.

THE CHEETA.

THE NON-RETRACTILE-CLAWED CAT.

The CHEETA, or Hunting-leopard, is the only example of this particular group, though there was an extinct form, whose remains are found in the Siwalik Hills, in the north of India. It is a very widely dispersed animal, found in Persia, Turkestan, and the countries east of the Caspian, and in India so far as the lower part of the centre of the peninsula. It is also common in Africa, where until recent years it was found in Cape Colony and Natal. Now it is banished to the Kalahari Desert, the Northern Transvaal, and Bechuanaland.

The cheeta is more dog-like than any other cat. It stands high on the leg, and has a short, rounded head. Its fur is short and rather woolly, its feet rounded, and its claws, instead of slipping back into sheaths like a lion's, are only partly retractile.

Mr. Lockwood Kipling gives the following account of the cheeta and its keepers: "The only point where real skill comes into play in dealing with the hunting-leopard is in catching the adult animal when it has already learnt the swift, bounding onset, its one accomplishment. The young cheeta is not worth catching, for it has not yet learnt its trade, nor can it be taught in captivity.... There are certain trees where these great dog-cats (for they have some oddly canine characteristics) come to play and whet their claws. The hunters find such a tree, and arrange nooses of deer-sinew round it, and wait the event. The animal comes and is caught by the leg, and it is at this point that the trouble begins. It is no small achievement for two or three naked, ill-fed men to secure so fierce a capture and carry it home tied on a cart. Then his training begins. He is tied in all directions, principally from a thick rope round his loins, while a hood fitted over his head effectually blinds him. He is fastened on a strong cot-bedstead, and the keepers and their wives and families reduce him to submission by starving him and keeping him awake. His head is made to face the village street, and for an hour at a time, several times a day, his keepers make pretended rushes at him, and wave clothes, staves, and other articles in his face. He is talked to continually, and the women's tongues are believed to be the most effective of things to keep him awake. No created being could withstand the effects of hunger, want of sleep, and feminine scolding; and the poor cheeta becomes piteously, abjectly tame. He is taken out for a walk occasionally--if a slow crawl between four attendants, all holding hard, can be called a walk--and his promenades are always through the crowded streets and bazaars, where the keepers' friends are to be found; but the people are rather pleased than otherwise to see the raja's cheetas amongst them." Later, when the creature is tamed, "the cheeta's bedstead is like that of the keeper, and leopard and man are often curled up under the same blanket! When his bedfellow is restless, the keeper lazily stretches out an arm from his end of the cot and dangles a tassel over the animal's head, which seems to soothe him. In the early morning I have seen a cheeta sitting up on his couch, a red blanket half covering him, and his tasselled red hood awry, looking exactly like an elderly gentleman in a nightcap, as he yawns with the irresolute air of one who is in doubt whether to rise or to turn in for another nap."

This charming and accurate description shows the cheeta at home. In the field he is quite another creature. He is driven as near as possible to the game, and then unhooded and given a sight of them. Sir Samuel Baker thus describes a hunt in which a cheeta was used: "The chase began after the right-hand buck, which had a start of about 110 yards. It was a magnificent sight to see the extraordinary speed of pursuer and pursued. The buck flew over the level surface, followed by the cheeta, which was laying out at full stretch, with its long, thick tail brandishing in the air. They had run 200 yards, when the keeper gave the word, and away we went as fast as our horses could carry us. The horses could go over this clear ground, where no danger of a fall seemed possible. I never saw anything to equal the speed of the buck and the cheeta; we were literally nowhere, although we were going as hard as horseflesh could carry us; but we had a glorious view. The cheeta was gaining in the course, while the buck was exerting every muscle for life or death in its last race. Presently, after a course of about a quarter of a mile, the buck doubled like a hare, and the cheeta lost ground as it shot ahead, instead of turning quickly, being only about thirty yards in rear of the buck. Recovering itself, it turned on extra steam, and the race appeared to recommence at increased speed. The cheeta was determined to win, and at this moment the buck made another double in the hope of shaking off its terrible pursuer; but this time the cheeta ran cunning, and was aware of the former game. It turned as sharply as the buck. Gathering itself together for a final effort, it shot forward like an arrow, picked up the distance which remained between them, and in a cloud of dust we could for one moment distinguish two forms. The next instant the buck was on its back, and the cheeta's fangs were fixed like an iron vice in its throat. The course run was about 600 yards, and it was worth a special voyage to India to see that hunt."

THE DOMESTIC CAT.

BY LOUIS WAIN.

Of the domestication of the cat we know very little, but it is recorded that a tribe of cats was trained to retrieve--_i.e._ to fetch and carry game. In our own time I have seen many cats fetch and carry corks and newspapers, and on one occasion pounce upon a small roach at the end of a line and place it at its owner's feet. Gamekeepers whom I have known agree that, for cunning, craftiness, and tenacity in attaining an object, the semi-wild cat of the woods shows far superior intelligence to the rest of the woodland denizens. It is quite a usual thing to hear of farm cats entering upon a snake-hunting expedition with the greatest glee, and showing remarkable readiness in pitching upon their quarry and pinning it down until secured. These farm cats are quite a race by themselves. Of decided sporting proclivities, they roam the countryside with considerable fierceness, and yet revert to the domesticity of the farmhouse fireside as though innocent of roving instincts. They are spasmodic to a degree in their mode of life, and apparently work out one mood before entering upon another. It will be remembered that this spasmodic tendency--the true feline independence, by-the-bye--is and has been characteristic of the cat throughout its history, and any one who has tried to overcome it has met with failure.

Watch your own cat, and you will see that he will change his sleeping-quarters periodically; and if he can find a newspaper conveniently placed, he will prefer it to lie upon, before anything perhaps, except a cane-bottomed chair, to which all cats are very partial. If you keep a number of cats, as I do, you will find that they are very imitative, and what one gets in the habit of doing they will all do in time: for instance, one of my cats took to sitting with his front paws inside my tall hat and his body outside, and this has become a catty fashion in the family, whether the object be a hat, cap, bonnet, small basket, box, or tin. If by chance one of the cats is attacked by a dog, a peculiar cry from the aggrieved animal will immediately awaken the others out of their lethargy or sleep, and bring them fiercely to the rescue. They are, too, particularly kind and nice to the old cat, and are tolerant only of strange baby kittens and very old cats in the garden as long as they do not interfere with the "catty" subject. The same quality obtains in Spain or Portugal, where a race of scavenging cats exists, which go about in droves or families, and are equal to climbing straight walls, big trees, chimneys, and mountain-sides. Long, lanky, and thin, they are built more on the lines of a greyhound than the ordinary cat, and are more easily trained in tricks than home cats.

The TORTOISESHELL has long been looked upon as the national cat of Spain, and in fact that country is overrun with the breed, ranging from a dense black and brown to lighter shades of orange-brown and white. The pure tortoiseshell might be called a black and tan, with no white, streaked like a tortoiseshell comb if possible, and with wonderful amber eyes. It is characteristic of their intelligence that they will invariably find their way home, and will even bring that mysterious instinct to bear which guides them back long distances to the place of their birth; and, with regard to this cat, the stories of almost impossible journeys made are not one bit exaggerated. The tom-cats of this breed are very rare in England; I myself have only known of the existence of six in fifteen years, and of these but three are recorded in the catalogues of our cat shows.

The BLACK CAT has many of the characteristics of the tortoiseshell, but is essentially a town cat, and is wont to dream his life away in shady corners, in underground cellars, in theatres, and in all places where he can, in fact, retire to monastic quiet. The black cat of St. Clement Danes Church was one of the remarkable cats of London. It was his wont to climb on to the top of the organ-pipes and enjoy an occasional musical concert alone. A christening or a wedding was his pride; and many people can vouch for a lucky wedding who had the good-fortune to be patronised by the black cat of St. Clement Danes, which walked solemnly down the aisle of the church in front of the happy couples.

My old pet Peter was a black-and-white cat, and, like most of his kind, was one of the most remarkable cats for intelligence I have ever known. A recital of his accomplishments would, however, have very few believers--a fact I find existing in regard to all really intelligent cats. There are so many cats of an opposite character, and people will rarely take more than a momentary trouble to win the finer nature of an animal into existence. Suffice it to say, that Peter would lie and die, sit up with spectacles on his nose and with a post-card between his paws--a trick I have taught many people's cats to do. He would also mew silent meows when bid, and wait at the door for my home-coming. For a long time, too, it was customary to hear weird footfalls at night outside the bedroom doors, and visitors to the house were a little more superstitious as to their cause than we were ourselves. We set a watch upon the supposed ghost, but sudden opening of the doors discovered only the mystic form of Peter sitting purring on the stairs. He was, however, ultimately caught in the act of lifting the corner of the door-rug and letting it fall back in its place, and he had grown quite expert in his method of raising and dropping it at regular intervals until he heard that his signals had produced the required effect, and the door was opened to admit him.

WHITE CATS I might call musical cats, for it is quite characteristic of the albinoes that noises rarely startle them out of their simpering, loving moods. The scraping of a violin, which will scare an ordinary cat out of its senses, or the thumping of a piano, which would terrorise even strong-nerved cats, would only incite a white cat to a happier mood. Certainly all white cats are somewhat deaf, or lack acute quality of senses; but this failing rather softens the feline nature than becomes dominant as a weakness.

The nearest to perfection perhaps, and yet at the same time extremely soft and finely made, is the BLUE CAT, rare in England as an English cat, but common in most other countries, and called in America the Maltese Cat--for fashion's sake probably, since it is too widely distributed there to be localised as of foreign origin. It is out in the mining districts and agricultural quarters, right away from the beaten tracks of humanity, where the most wonderful breeds of cats develop in America; and caravan showmen have told me that at one time it was quite a business for them to carry cats into these wildernesses, and sell them to rough, hardy miners, who dealt out death to each other without hesitation in a quarrel, but who softened to the appeal of an animal which reminded them of homelier times.

One man told me that upon one occasion he sold eight cats at an isolated mining township in Colorado, and some six days' journey farther on he was caught up by a man on horseback from the township, who had ridden hard to overtake the menagerie caravan, with the news that one of the cats had climbed a monster pine-tree, and that all the other cats had followed in his wake; food and drink had been placed in plenty at the foot of the tree, but that the cats had been starving, frightened out of their senses, for three days, and despite all attempts to reach them they had only climbed higher and higher out of reach into the uppermost and most dangerous branches of the pine. The showman hastened with his guide across country to the township, only to find that in the interval one bright specimen of a man belonging to the village had suggested felling the tree, and so rescuing the cats from the pangs of absolute starvation, should they survive the ordeal. A dynamite cartridge had been used to blast the roots of the pine, and a rope attached to its trunk had done the rest and brought the monster tree to earth, only, however, at the expense of all the cats, for not one survived the tremendous fall and shaking. A sad and tearful procession followed the remains of the cats to their hastily dug grave, and thereafter a bull mastiff took the place of the cats in the township, an animal more in character with the lives of its inhabitants.

Analogous to this case of the travelling menageries, we have the great variety of blues, silvers, and whites which are characteristic of Russia. There is a vast tableland of many thousands of miles in extent, intersected by caravan routes to all the old countries of the ancients, and it is not astonishing to hear of attempts being made to steal the wonderful cats of Persia, China, and Northern India, as well as those of the many dependent and independent tribes which bound the Russian kingdom. But it is a remarkable fact that none but the blues can live in the attenuated atmosphere of the higher mountainous districts through which they are taken before arriving in Russian territory. It is no uncommon thing to find a wonderful complexity of blue cats shading to silver and white in most Russian villages, or blue cats of remarkable beauty, but with a dash of tabby-marking running through their coats. Their life, too, is lived at the two extremes. In the short Russian summer they roam the woodlands, pestered by a hundred poisonous insects; in the winter they are imprisoned within the four walls of a snow-covered cottage, and are bound down prisoners to domesticity till the thaw sets in again. Many of the beautiful furs which come to us from Russia are really the skins of these cats, the preparation of which for market has grown into a large and thriving industry. The country about Kronstadt, in the Southern Carpathian Mountains of Austria, is famous for its finely developed animals; and here, too, has grown up a colony of sable-coloured cats, said to be of Turkish origin, where the pariahs take the place of cats.

The TABBY is remarkable to us in that it is characteristic of our own country, and no other colour seems to have been popular until our own times. If you ask any one which breed of cat is the real domestic cat, you will be told the tabby, probably because it is so well known to all. The complexity of the tabby is really remarkable, and for shape and variety of colouring it has no equal in any other tribe of cat. It has comprised in its nature all the really great qualities of the feline, and all its worst attributes. You can truthfully say of one of its specimens that it attaches itself to the individual, while of another in the same litter you will get an element of wildness. A third of the same parents will sober down to the house, but take only a passing notice of people. You can teach it anything if it is tractable, make it follow like a dog, come to whistle, but it will have its independence.

The SAND-COLOURED CAT, with a whole-coloured coat like the rabbit, which we know as the ABYSSINIAN or BUNNY CAT, is a strong African type. On the Gold Coast it comes down from the inland country with its ears all bitten and torn away in its fights with rivals. It has been acclimatised in England, and Devonshire and Cornwall have both established a new and distinct tribe out of its parentage. The MANX CAT is nearly allied to it, and a hundred years ago the tailless cat was called the Cornwall Cat, not the Manx.

Siam sends us a regal animal in the SIAMESE ROYAL CAT; it has a brown face, legs, and tail, a cream-coloured body, and mauve or blue eyes. The Siamese take great care of their cats, for it is believed that the souls of the departed are transmitted into the bodies of animals, and the cat is a favourite of their creed; consequently the cats are highly cultivated and intelligent, and can think out ways and means to attain an end.

I have tried for years to trace the origin of the LONG-HAIRED or PERSIAN CATS, but I cannot find that they were known to antiquity, and even the records of later times only mention the SHORT-HAIRED. European literature does not give us an insight into the subject; and unless Chinese history holds some hidden lights in its records, we are thrown back upon the myths of Persia to account for the wonderful modern distribution of the long-haired cat, which is gradually breeding out into as many varieties as the short-haired, with this difference--that greater care and trouble are taken over the long-haired, and they will, as a breed, probably soon surpass the short-haired for intelligence and culture.

One variety is quite new and distinctive--the SMOKE LONG-HAIRED, whose dark brown or black surface-coat, blown aside, shows an under-coat of blue and silver, with a light brown frill round its neck. All the other long-haired cats can pair with the short-haired for colouring and marking, but I have not yet seen a BUNNY LONG-HAIRED.

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