BEASTS OF PREY--_Continued_
In the cats (family Felidæ) we come to the most recent and advanced
development of the carnivorous type, by straight descent from the
Eocene Miacidæ. Their cardinal characteristics are found in their round
heads and short muzzles; their teeth fitted for cutting rather than
chewing, with sharp and slender canines very prominent; their sheathed
claws; and their powerful activity. Although the civets and the foussa
have retractile claws they do not show the perfection exhibited in
this feature in the cat family. Here the final bone of every toe (the
terminal phalange) is so hinged upon the one next behind it that
ordinarily it stands upright, held there by an elastic ligament, with
the sharp, curved claw hidden in a sheath of skin and thus kept from
touching the ground and so becoming blunted; for in the cat's method
of work sharp claws are needed to hold the prey on which it has leaped
until its teeth can come into play. When this seizing leap is made a
tendon running along the underside of the toe is retracted, pulling
down the claw and causing it to pierce and hold the body of the victim.
This is the explanation of Puss's familiar scratching ability, and
accounts for the fact that while dogs, developing long legs for their
style of attack, chase and finally seize their prey with their big,
strong canines, cats steal upon it or more often lie in ambush and
pounce on it, using their slender canines mainly as piercers. The cats
do their hunting mostly alone, and are therefore largely at the mercy
of wolves, etc., who go in packs; and herein lies the origin of the
fear and hate with which cats regard all dogs.
The cats are a very uniform group, all the many species belonging to
the single genus Felis, except the few lynxes and the cheetah. No
better example of the race can be found than our "fireside sphinx."
She is a direct descendant of the "Caffre," or "Libyan" cat, a native
of northeastern Africa, and especially of Egypt, where she still
runs wild. Reddish sandy in color, with faint, broken, darker bars
across the body, limbs, and tail, and narrow vertical lines on the
face, excellent copies of this original of all the domestic cats of
the western world, at least, may often be seen in our houses. This
likeness is supported by the evidence of history and archæology--the
skeletons of Egyptian cat mummies, and bones associated with the dawn
of history. In regard to the present, however, some deduction must be
made. In all parts of the world one or another of the smaller wildcats
of the country have been kept as pets in native houses; and wherever
the people have been far enough advanced to raise and store grain, they
have cultivated a cat or some other animal to free their granaries
from thieving mice. It was for this purpose, no doubt, that the cats
of Egypt were first tamed; and then, to make the people prudently
keep them and care for them, the priests invented a beneficent and
cheerful cat goddess, who, naturally, was said to walk abroad mostly by
moonlight. When the tamed Egyptian cats reached Europe with the early
Phoenician colonists and traders they would certainly soon meet and
interbreed with the native stock; and to such crossing is probably
due the banded or "tabby" cats. On the other hand, brindled cats were
formerly unknown in eastern Asia, whose spotted or foxy house cats were
derived from other and local sources. Since intercourse between Europe
and the Orient became frequent, more or less mixture has occurred;
although one very distinct Eastern breed persists--the long-furred
Persian or Angora cats, a race probably derived prehistorically from
the manul, of Turkestan.
The differences between members of this genus Felis, all of which seem
able to interbreed, when similar in size, are chiefly of size and coat.
Their prey and hunting methods are substantially alike everywhere,
and in domestication cats are slow to vary from the wild type in any
respect except in color--a result of their mixed ancestry. Puss remains
a savage in a civilized coat, and, accepting condescendingly the novel
comforts offered her, refuses to forsake her own forest gods for the
fireside shrines of her tempters.
The word "wildcat" is naturally used for any small feline, but strictly
belongs to the yellowish, tabby-marked, forest cat (_F. catus_) of
Europe and Siberia, now becoming rare. Closely allied to it is the
manul, of the central Asian steppes, where the long fur that envelopes
it (as preserved in our domestic Persian beauties) is required by the
awful cold of those lofty plains. Several other small cats inhabit
the desert parts of southern Asia, which abound in rodents; and the
long-legged, powerful, fawn-colored caracal ranges, nowhere numerously,
from India and Mesopotamia around to Arabia and South Africa. Africa
has several other cats of the open country, the best known of which is
the swift-running, handsome serval, which is an expert tree climber.
Southeastern Asia has three or four beautifully marked forest cats, and
four of great size--three leopards and the tiger.
The typical leopard is distributed from China and Borneo westward
to southern Arabia and all over Africa, except in deserts and cold
mountains; but the ounce, which may be regarded as a variety of it,
inhabits the Himalayas, staying near the borders of the snow line for
the most part, and another beautiful variety, the clouded leopard,
frequents the forests of the median slopes of that vast range. The
ground color of the leopard is yellowish brown, of varying intensity,
and is thickly covered with rosettes of black spots inclosing a clear
area, with the breast and belly white. The favorite haunts of leopards
are rocky, brushy hills with holes suitable for a den, where they may
watch the surrounding country, and at sunset descend with astonishing
celerity and stealth to cut off any straggling animal returning to the
village at nightfall. They prey boldly on the small Hindu cattle and
ponies, but more habitually on the sheep, goats, and dogs, and now and
then (but rarely) turn man-eaters.
The leopard cannot overcome, ordinarily, animals as large as the lion
and tiger slay, but everything of lesser size is acceptable, down
to robbing birds' nests and clawing grubs out of rotten wood. It is
somewhat smaller than our cougar, a male in good condition weighing
about 125 pounds.
[Illustration: TIGERS
(_Felis tigris_)]
The tiger--for there is only one, in spite of circus advertisements
of a "royal Bengal" as something different--is purely Asiatic, the
species ranging from the Caucasus and the mountains of Ararat to the
East Indies (Sumatra and Java), and northward to central Siberia and
Sakhalin. It is to be found throughout all India, but does not occur in
Ceylon.
Speaking of the tiger always brings to mind that other great cat, the
lion. These powerful marauders dispute the title of "king of beasts."
Their respective realms overlap but little. The lion, like the other
big cats, is a relic of a diminishing race and kingdom. In the early
Stone Age the "cave" lion (virtually the same as the present _Felis
leo_) roamed throughout the southern half of Europe, and its final
extermination north of the Mediterranean was doubtless accomplished
by prehistoric men. Afghanistan, Beluchistan and northern Persia were
rid of them long ago. A century ago lions were more or less prevalent
in northwestern India, but now none remain save a few in the Gheer,
a wooded hilly tract of Kattiawar. In Persia they survive only in
Farsistan, where marshes afford shelter, and the hosts of pigs feeding
on the acorns of the oak forests furnish subsistence. But they were
long ago exterminated from all Asia Minor, Arabia, Egypt, and Algeria.
From Abyssinia, and the southern Sahara southward to the Orange
River, lions still exist except in the most populous districts, and
in some places are very numerous. This range of territory shows that,
unlike the forest-loving tiger, the lion is an inhabitant of open,
bushy country, finding its game in the herds of antelopes, zebras,
and similar plains-running animals rather than in the jungle fauna to
which the tiger is confined; also that the tiger is inured to a far
colder climate. This difference in habitat and hunting requirements
accounts, in the minds of those who pay much attention to adaptive
(or "protective") coloration, for the difference in their dress, for
the tiger is said to become almost invisible in its yellow coat and
vertical black stripes amid the flickering shadows of the wood, or when
creeping through the long Indian grass, while the unmarked, grayish
yellow, or sand tint, of the lion is equally unnoticeable on the desert
or on the sere veldt of its East African hunting grounds. The great
mane of the male lion--but some never acquire this ornament, or only
scantily--and his greater height at the shoulder give him a majestic
mien.
A lion of large size measures about nine and a half feet from the nose
to the tip of the tail, which is about three feet long; stands three
and a half feet high at the shoulders; and weighs about five hundred
pounds. Most specimens, however, fall far short of these figures; and
the largest examples have come from South Africa. The dimensions and
weight of tigers average just about the same, the extreme examples
on record having no doubt been measured along the curves of the body
instead of in a straight line between the two terminal points, nose and
tip of tail, as is the proper method. The literature relating to these
two royal and puissant beasts is immense in its extent, and the best
of it is that written by the hunter-naturalists who during the past
century have studied and fought them in their native wilds.
[Illustration: LION
(_Felis leo_)]
The western hemisphere has a series of native cats which, although
not equal in size and strength to the lion and tiger, are hardly less
formidable in view of the game they hunt. The biggest is the jaguar,
which is found from western Texas to northern Argentina. It is about
the size of the leopard, but has a bulkier body, bigger head, shorter
and more massive limbs, and shorter tail; hence, while less active
and supple, it is perhaps more powerful than the leopard, and certainly
is stronger than the puma. The ground color varies from the yellowish
gray seen in arid Paraguay to almost red in the steaming equatorial
swamps, while in the lower Orinoco Valley deep brown and black ones are
common; but there is only one species. The coat is everywhere spotted
with black, not in the leopard's hollow rosettes, but forming larger,
irregular groups, each inclosing a black central spot.
This is the "tigre" of the American tropics, and indeed, is so called
wherever Spanish is spoken. It hunts the largest game of its country,
especially tapirs and deer; and wherever domestic animals are reared
it becomes a destructive pest. For the most part, however, these cats
subsist on capybaras and other rodents; and in Mexico on peccaries,
striking down stragglers and then hastening up a tree out of the way
of the furious herd of these sharp-toothed pigs brought together by
the squealing of the first victim. Rarely found away from water, which
seems as necessary to it as to the tiger, it is not surprising to find
that in such places as the reedy borders of the La Plata fish form
its main diet, snatched from the water by the paw. On the Amazon it
feeds largely on turtles and their eggs. It attacks the manatee in its
own element, and has been seen "dragging out of the water this bulky
animal, weighing as much as an ox." Even the crocodile and cayman are
regularly preyed upon. Its fondness for monkeys is also well known, and
it is hated and reviled by them with the same fury as leads the East
Indian apes to hurl sticks and bad language at the tiger.
The "cougar," as Buffon named it, the "puma" of the Peruvians,
"panther" and "mountain lion," as it is known in the United States,
is another big American cat familiar to woodsmen from New England,
Minnesota, and northern British Columbia southward to Patagonia; and
everywhere it is so precisely uniform that the most hair-splitting
systemists have been unable to subdivide its species (_Felis concolor_)
into local varieties. Its upper parts vary from foxy red to a dull
blue, this difference in color having no reference to age, season or
locality. The underparts are white; and there are no spots anywhere
except that the lips and outer rim of the ear are black, and a patch
of white marks each side of the muzzle. The panther was much dreaded
by the early settlers of the Eastern States and by the frontiersmen
settling the Mississippi Valley, who were more alarmed by its doleful
screams as it wandered about in the night, than by any history of harm,
for it avoided men with a greater fear than their own; nevertheless, it
became a nuisance by its raids on the farmer's live stock and he killed
it off, so that now pumas are to be met with only in the forested and
swampy fastnesses of some of the Gulf States and in the Far West.
There they still do great damage to the young animals on ranches,
especially where horses are plentiful on the range. This is equally
true of South America. Nowhere, however, is the puma feared by mankind
as is the jaguar; on the contrary, remarkable stories are recorded, and
constantly being verified by experience, not only of the cowardice of
the animal, but of its apparent desire to make friends with humanity,
following lonely persons without harming them, apparently merely in
satisfaction of an innocent curiosity. It is hunted usually with dogs,
to escape which it will climb into a tree, and once there remain to be
shot rather than come down to fight, even when the hunters are close up.
Tropical America is the home of several smaller cats, some of which
among the spotted ones are probably only varieties of the ocelot. This
highly variable but always beautiful creature is about two and a half
feet long in body, rather long in the legs, is an expert tree-climber,
and is abundant from Oklahoma southward into the Brazilian forest, but
has a different name in every country. It is grayish, thickly marked
with fawn-colored, black-edged, oval patches and stripes in endless
variety; and its fur is one of the most marketable in the country. On
the prairies and plains of the open country south of Brazil the pampas
cat, or "pajero," is common. It is of robust form, with long hair,
very plain in its grayish tint on the back, but beautifully spotted
and striped on the belly and legs. It is a ground-runner, preying on
rodents and birds. Brazil has in its forests a notable cat of medium
size called "jaguarundi," with a noticeably slender form, short legs
and a tail nearly as long as its body. It is dark gray in hue and
entirely unspotted. This may, on further study, turn out to be only a
variety of the "eyra," another cat of the tropics, sometimes met with
as far north as the Rio Grande Valley, which looks in its unspotted
chestnut coat more like a huge weasel than a cat. It is a graceful and
nimble climber, and lives on prey caught in trees.
Our common "bobcat," the wildcat best known to most readers, is a
lynx--one might say _the_ lynx, since in spite of the wide variety
that specimens show between those of Quebec and those of Texas, for
example, all seem to be one species, which is only locally different
from the lynx of the Old World. But Spain appears to possess a distinct
species in the pardine lynx. Lynxes differ from the typical cats
(_Felis_) in having only two instead of three pre-molar teeth, but most
notably in their heavy bodies, stout limbs, big and powerful feet,
very short, thick tails, and the tufts of hair on the tips of the
ears. The big Canadian lynxes are clothed in coats of long grizzled
hair, valuable in the fur market and suited to the freezing winters
of their home, where their fare during the cold months is restricted
almost entirely to hares; but in the United States, and especially
toward the south, these cats are much smaller, have thin coats and show
reddish and yellowish tints with much spottings. They have survived the
presence of civilization wherever rough hills or swampy forests give
them a refuge, and they prey on mice, rabbits, birds, and poultry.
A single cat remains to be mentioned, the curious cheetah, or hunting
leopard, which is known all over southern Asia, and Africa, and in
India and Persia is trained to hunt antelopes. It is somewhat less in
size of body than the leopard, but stands on long legs, and in color
is yellowish, with many obscure blackish spots. Its great peculiarity,
however, is the fact that its claws are not retractile, like those
of the true cats, or only partly so; and that it chases its prey
with great speed and in a doglike manner, although lacking the dog's
persistence and endurance. This mingling of characteristics makes it
hard to classify, and it perhaps should have led, instead of closed,
the chapter on the cat family.