Part 4

Two of these noble animals, the one male and the other female, are among the most striking and attractive ornaments of the Menagerie. The beautiful male, of which our figure offers a characteristic likeness, is a very recent importation, having arrived in England in the month of April of the present year, in the East India Company’s ship Buckinghamshire, to the commander of which, Captain Glasspool, we are indebted for the following particulars relative to his birthplace, capture, early life, and education. He was taken prisoner in company with two other cubs, supposed to be not more than three weeks old, on that part of the coast of the peninsula of Malacca which is opposite to the island of Penang, and is commonly known by the name of the Queda Coast. In our present imperfect acquaintance with this part of the farther peninsula of Hindoostan, it affords perhaps but little ground for surprise that none of these terrible animals should have previously reached this quarter of the globe from a locality so seldom visited by European vessels. Their existence in its extensive jungles and marshy plains has long, however, been notorious; and to judge from the specimen now before us, which, although barely two years old, already exceeds in size the full-grown Asiatic Lion which occupies the neighbouring den, they must in that situation be at least as formidable as their fellows of the hither peninsula. The dam of this individual had, it appears, made a nocturnal incursion into one of the towns of the district, from which she had carried off a large quantity of provisions. She was pursued and killed, and her three cubs were taken possession of by the conquerors in token of their victory and brought home in triumph. One of them, a female, died shortly after; the second, a male, is still living in the possession of a resident at Penang; and the third, the subject of the present article, also fell into the hands of a gentleman of that settlement, in whose paddock he was confined, in company with a pony and a dog, for upwards of twelve months, without evincing the least inclination to injure his companions or any one who approached him. By this gentleman he was presented to Captain Glasspool, who brought him to England: on the voyage he was remarkably tame, allowing the sailors to play with him, and appearing to take much pleasure in their caresses. On being placed in his present den he was rather sulky for a few days; but seems now to have recovered his good temper, and to be perfectly reconciled to his situation. The mildness of his temper may probably be in a great measure due to his having from a very early age been accustomed to boiled food; raw flesh never having been offered to him until after his arrival in the Menagerie. This change of food he seems particularly to enjoy, although he has by no means lost his appetite for soup, which he devours with much eagerness. Notwithstanding his immature age, Mr. Cops considers him the largest Tiger that he ever saw.

The other individual at present in the Tower is a Tigress of great beauty from Bengal, scarcely a twelvemonth old, who also promises to become an exceedingly fine animal. During her passage from Calcutta she was allowed to range about the vessel unrestricted, became perfectly familiar with the sailors, and showed not the slightest symptom of ferocity. On her arrival, however, in the Thames, the irritation produced by the sight of strangers completely and instantly changed her temper, rendering her irascible and dangerous. Her deportment was so sulky and savage that Mr. Cops could scarcely be prevailed on by her former keeper, who saw her shortly afterwards, to allow him to enter her den: but no sooner did she recognise her old friend, than she fawned upon him, licked him, and caressed him, exhibiting the most extravagant signs of pleasure; and when he left her she cried and whined for the remainder of the day. To her new residence and her new keeper she is now perfectly reconciled.

THE LEOPARD.

_FELIS LEOPARDUS._ LINN.

The race of this wily and sanguinary animal, which is unsurpassed in all the terrible characteristics of its tribe, and yields to the tremendous and ferocious beasts, to the illustration of whose habits and manners our previous pages have been devoted, in none of their dreaded attributes, excepting only in size and strength, is spread almost as extensively over the surface of the Old World as that of the Lion himself. From the shores of the Mediterranean to the immediate neighbourhood of the Cape he is familiar to every part of the monster-bearing continent of Africa; while in the east of Asia his fatal spring and murderous talons are equally known and dreaded by the mild and timid Hindoos, the polite but still barbarous Chinese, and the fierce and savage Islanders of the great Sumatran chain. Throughout this immense tract of country he varies but in a trifling degree, and that merely in his comparative magnitude, in the size, shape, and disposition of his markings, and in the greater or less intensity of his colouring: in the more essential particulars of form and structure, as well as in character and disposition, he is every where the same.

It has already been mentioned that the Leopard is smaller than the Tiger; indeed he seldom exceeds from three to four feet from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail, which latter is somewhat shorter than the body. Perhaps the largest authentic measurement is that of an animal, spoken of under the designation of Panther, but in all probability truly a Leopard, which was killed by Colonel Denham’s party in the course of that zealous and successful traveller’s late expedition, and which is stated at eight feet two inches from the muzzle to the extremity of the tail. This savage creature, although twice impaled by the lances of his pursuers which he had snapped asunder in his rage, was still on the point of making a spring upon the foremost of the party, when a musket ball through the head completely deprived him of that vitality which his previous wounds, dangerous and fatal as they undoubtedly were, had not even appeared to diminish in any sensible degree.

The ground colour of the fur of the Leopard, which is eminently and beautifully sleek, is a yellowish fawn above, which becomes paler on the sides, and is entirely lost in the pure white of the under part of the body. The top of the back, the head, neck, limbs, and under surface of the body, are irregularly covered with larger or smaller, roundish or oval, perfectly black spots; while the whole of the sides of the animal and a portion of his tail are occupied by numerous distinct roses, formed by the near approach of three or four elongated small black spots, which surround a central area, about an inch or an inch and a quarter in breadth, of a somewhat deeper colour than the ground on which it is placed. There are some black lines on the lips, and bands of the same colour on the inside of the legs; two or three imperfect black circles, alternating with white, also occur towards the extremity of the tail, which is entirely white beneath.

It would be superfluous to enter into any detail of his habits, which correspond but too well with those of his fellow cats already described, and are only modified by his want of equal power. This deficiency is, however, in a great measure supplied by the extreme pliability of his spine, which gives to his motions a degree of velocity, agility, and precision combined, that is altogether unequalled by any other quadruped, and to which the greater lateral compression of his body, the increased length and more slender proportions of his limbs, and the suppleness of all his joints must of necessity materially contribute. Equally savage, equally dastardly, and equally cruel, he closely imitates the manners of the Lion and the Tiger, on a somewhat reduced, but still formidable, scale. Antilopes, monkeys, and the smaller quadrupeds constitute his usual prey, upon which he darts forth from his secret stand, and which he pertinaciously pursues even upon the trees where they may have taken refuge, climbing after them with surprising agility. Man he generally endeavours, if possible, to avoid; but, when hard pressed, he fears not to make head against the hunter; and it frequently requires the exertion of no common share of skill and intrepidity in the latter to save himself from the deadly fangs of the infuriated object of his pursuit. Occasionally, indeed, the cravings of hunger stimulate the treacherous animal to attack the unwary woodcutter, or the lone traveller whose path has led to his secret haunts; but in this case he rarely, if ever, shows himself openly in the face of day, but watches with insidious glare for the fatal opportunity of springing upon his wretched victim from behind, and of annihilating his power of resistance before it could possibly be exerted in his defence.

In captivity, however, especially if taken while yet young, his character frequently undergoes a change as favourable as that which takes place under the same circumstances in the generality of his tribe. The pair at present in the Tower are male and female; they are both Asiatic, and are confined in the same den, but they differ very materially in temper and disposition. The female, which is the older of the two, and has been a resident in the Menagerie for upwards of four years, is exceedingly tame, suffering herself to be patted and caressed by the keeper, and licking his hands. Strangers, however, especially ladies, should be cautious of approaching her too familiarly, as she has always evinced a particular predilection for the destruction of umbrellas, parasols, muffs, hats, and such other articles of dress as may happen to come within her reach, seizing them with the greatest quickness and tearing them into pieces almost before the astonished visiter has become aware of the loss. To so great an extent has she carried this peculiar taste that Mr. Cops declares that he has no doubt that during her residence in the Tower she has made prey of at least as many of these articles as there are days in the year. The agility with which she bounds round her cell, which is of considerable size, touching at one leap, and almost with the velocity of thought, each of its four walls, and skimming along the ceiling with the same rapidity of action, which is scarcely to be followed by the eye, is truly wonderful, and speaks more forcibly of the muscular power and flexibility of limb by which such extraordinary motions are executed than language can express.

The male, on the contrary, although he has been more than twelve months an inmate of the Tower, is still as sullen and as savage as on the day of his arrival. Notwithstanding the kind treatment which has been lavished upon him by the keepers, he yet refuses to become familiarised with them, and receives all their overtures at a nearer acquaintance with such sulky and even angry symptoms as plainly evince that it would be dangerous to tamper with his unreclaimed and unmanageable disposition. He is, as is usual in all these animals, larger than the female, and much richer and more beautiful in the style of his marking and depth of his colouring. The two animals, however, although differing so greatly in temper, agree together tolerably well, excepting only at meal times, when their usual harmony is in some measure broken in upon by the jealousy with which they regard each other’s share of the repast.

Their food consists of about five pounds of beef per day for each: this the keeper generally tosses up in front of their den, at the distance of nearly two feet from the bars, and to the height of six or eight feet from the floor. The animals, who are on the alert for their dinner, immediately leap towards the bars, and, darting out their paws with incredible swiftness, almost uniformly succeed in seizing it before it falls to the ground. If, as it sometimes happens, the meat is thrown up at too great a distance, so as not to be fairly within reach, they remain perfectly stationary and make no attempt to spring upon it, but watch it with anxious avidity, apparently calculating and comparing the distance of the object and the extent of their own grasp. When they have, in this way, secured their meal, instead of ravenously falling to, like the other carnivorous animals in the collection, they stand growling over it for some minutes, leering upon each other with the most frightful contortions. This growling attitude of mistrust in feeding was constantly maintained by the female, even before she had a companion in her captivity, and when consequently there existed no immediate object for the excitement of her selfish or envious feelings.

THE JAGUAR.

_FELIS ONCA._ LINN.

It can scarcely fail to have been remarked by those who have perused the preceding pages with moderate attention that the species of cats described in them, including the largest and most formidable of the whole genus, are exclusively natives of the Old World, and confined to the hot and burning climates of Southern Asia and of Africa. A second and more numerous class, of which, however, no example exists at present in the Tower Menagerie, and which, consequently, it does not fall within our province to illustrate, occupy the colder and northern regions of both hemispheres. These belong principally to the same subdivision with the Lynx (being, like him, distinguished by the pencils of long hairs which surmount their ears), and to that which comprehends the domestic cat; and are all of diminutive size and trifling power when compared with those monstrous productions of the torrid zone, the Lion, the Tiger, and the Leopard. The reader is not, however, to imagine that the smaller species exist only in the vicinity of the pole and in the temperate regions of the earth: he will find, on the contrary, that many of them are natives of more southern climes, and commit their petty ravages under as fierce a sun as that which fires their more dreaded competitors in the career of rapine and of blood. Of one of these, the true Lynx of antiquity, we shall have occasion to treat in a subsequent article.

But there is also a third class which springs into existence in the warmer climates of America, some of whose representatives almost equal the Tiger in magnitude, in vigour, and in ferocity, while others rival the Leopard in the beauty and sleekness of their fur, and in the agility and gracefulness of their motions. Foremost of these, and holding the highest rank among the most formidable animals of the New World, stands the Jaguar, or, as he is sometimes called, the American Tiger. Superior to the Leopard in size as well as in strength, he approaches very nearly in both respects to the Lionesses of the smaller breeds: he is, however, less elevated on his legs, and heavier and more clumsy in all his proportions. His head is larger and rounder than that of the Leopard; and his tail is considerably shorter in proportion, being only of sufficient length to allow of its touching the ground when the animal is standing, while that of the Leopard, as we have before observed, is very nearly as long as his whole body. This disproportion between the length of their tails affords perhaps the most striking distinction between the two animals, offering, as it does, a constant and never-failing criterion; whereas the difference in the marking of their furs, although sufficiently obvious on a close examination, depends almost entirely on such minute particularities as would probably escape the notice of a superficial observer, and were in fact for a long time so completely neglected, even by zoologists, that it is only within a few years that we have been again taught accurately to distinguish between them. These particularities we shall now proceed to point out.

On the whole upper surface of the body of the Jaguar the fur, which is short, close, and smooth, is of a bright yellowish fawn; passing on the throat, belly, and inside of the legs, into a pure white. On this ground the head, limbs, and under surface are covered with full black spots of various sizes; and the rest of the body with roses, either entirely bordered by a black ring or surrounded by several of the smaller black spots arranged in a circular form. The full spots are generally continued upon the greater part of the tail, the tip of which is black, and which is also encircled near its extremity by three or four black rings. So far there is little to distinguish the marking of the Jaguar from that of the Leopard; we come now to the differences observable between them. The spots which occupy the central line of the back in the former are full, narrow, and elongated; and the roses of the sides and haunches, which are considerably larger and proportionally less numerous than in the Leopard, are all or nearly all marked with one or sometimes two black dots or spots of smaller size towards their centre: an apparently trifling, but constant and very remarkable distinction, which exists in no other species. By this peculiarity alone the Jaguar may at once be recognised; and this external characteristic, together with the extreme shortness of his tail, his much greater size, his comparatively clumsy form, and the heaviness of all his motions, not to speak of the peculiarity of his voice, which has the sharp and harsh sound of an imperfect bark, are unquestionably fully sufficient to sanction his separation from a race of animals, from which, however much he may resemble them in general characters, he differs in so many and such essential particulars. That this separation has been made more complete by the hand of Nature herself, who has interposed the wide ocean between him and those of his fellows with whom alone there is any probability of his being confounded, is an additional proof, if any confirmation were wanting, of the soundness of the distinction which has been drawn between them.

It is in the swampy forests of South America that the Jaguar commits his destructive ravages, which are spread over nearly the whole of that continent from Paraguay almost to the Isthmus of Darien. It has frequently been said that he is also to be found in Mexico; but this appears to be a mistake, originating probably in Buffon’s having confounded the Jaguar with the Ocelot, describing and figuring the latter under the name of the former, and intermingling with his description many of the peculiar traits of the real Jaguar derived from the relations of travellers. On the other hand he has erroneously figured the latter animal under the name of the Panther; a mistake in which he has been followed by Pennant and others, and with which the writings of zoologists are more or less infected even up to the present day. What the Panther of the ancients actually was, or whether there exists any real difference between it and the Leopard, is a much disputed question, into which we have neither space nor inclination to enter: certain it is that it could not possibly have been the present animal, which has never been found out of the limits of America; and that Buffon himself had no idea, while he was figuring the latter, that the specimen before him was not a native of Africa or the East. The name of Jaguar is corruptedly derived from the Brazilian appellation of the animal, to which the Portuguese have given the name of Onça; another blunder, for the Ounce of the Old World is now universally allowed to be identical with the Leopard, and with the latter we have already shown that it is impossible that the American species can be conjoined.

Like the Cats already described, to whom, however, he is much inferior in the suppleness and elasticity of his motions, the Jaguar makes his solitary haunt in the recesses of the forest, especially in the neighbourhood of large rivers, which he swims with the greatest dexterity. Of the extent of this faculty, as well as of his extraordinary strength, some judgment may be formed from a circumstance related by D’Azara, which fell partly under that traveller’s personal observation; namely, that a Jaguar, after having attacked and destroyed a horse, carried the body of his victim for about sixty paces to the bank of a broad and deep river, over which he swam with his prey, and then dragged it into the adjoining wood. According to M. Sonnini he is as expert at climbing as at swimming. “I have seen,” he says, “in the forests of Guiana, the prints left by the claws of the Jaguar on the smooth bark of a tree from forty to fifty feet in height, measuring about a foot and a half in circumference, and clothed with branches near its summit alone. It was easy to follow with the eye the efforts which the animal had made to reach the branches: although his talons had been thrust deeply into the body of the tree, he had met with several slips, but he had always recovered his ground, and, attracted no doubt by some favourite object of prey, had at length succeeded in gaining the very top.”

Endowed with such tremendous powers it is no wonder that this formidable animal is regarded with terror by the inhabitants of the countries which he infests. He seldom, however, attacks the human race; although he does not appear to shun it with any peculiar dread. His onset is always made from behind, and in the same treacherous manner as that of all his tribe; of a herd of animals or of a band of men passing within his reach, he uniformly singles out the last as the object of his fatal bound. When he has made choice of his victim he springs upon its neck, and, placing one of his paws upon the back of its head while he seizes its muzzle with the other, twists its head round with a sudden jerk, which dislocates its spine and deprives it instantaneously of life and motion. His favourite game appears to be the larger quadrupeds, such as oxen, horses, sheep, and dogs, whom he attacks indiscriminately and almost always successfully, when urged by the powerful cravings of his maw. At other times he is indolent and cowardly, secretes himself in caverns, skulks in the depths of the forest, and is scared by the most trifling causes.

The Spaniards and even the native Indians appear to take a pleasure in hunting the Jaguar, whom they attack in various ways. One of the most common is to chase him with a numerous pack of dogs, who, although they dare not attack so formidable an opponent, frequently succeed in driving him to seek refuge on a tree or in a thick copse. Should he trust himself to the former, he is usually destroyed by the musket or the lance; but if he has taken covert among the bushes, it is sometimes difficult to aim at him with precision. In this latter case some of the Indians are hardy enough to attack him single-handed; a perilous exploit, which, according to D’Azara, they perform in the following manner. Armed only with a lance, of five feet in length, they envelope their left arm in a sheep-skin, by means of which they evade the first onset of the furious animal, and gain sufficient time to plunge their weapon into his body before he can turn upon them for a second attack. Another mode of destroying him is by means of the lasso; but this method can of course be employed only when the animal roams abroad upon the plains, or can be driven by the dogs into an open space fit for the purpose. Riding at full gallop with the lasso coiled up in their hands, these excellent horsemen will throw the noose with such certainty and precision as infallibly to secure their formidable enemy at the distance of a hundred paces, and to place him completely at their mercy.