the Asiatic panther, Drummond asserts that the leopard, which is a
comparatively rare animal, is, although of smaller size, the fiercer
and more dangerous of the two. He explains that its rarity is more
apparent than real, and depends upon the creature’s “nocturnal habits
and the thickness of the jungles they lie in,” so that sportsmen only
“occasionally come across them by accident.”
It is singular, however, that a hunter who had passed a number of years
in a country where they abound, should have been so little impressed by
the prowess of a beast which, at least in Central and West Africa, is
very destructive to human life. It must be the case that the brute’s
character varies somewhat with locality, yet Drummond’s narrative
portrays a condition of things under which its native ferocity and
aggressive nature should have been developed and not diminished.
However this may be, the pale, almost white-skinned panther, whose
light color is very conspicuous in its rosette, was plainly regarded by
Drummond as a much less formidable foe than its congener of the Indian
jungles, or even than its relations which Baker and others found in the
northern parts of Africa.
Still, he admits that “common leopards, _i.e._ the two forms locally
known under the name of _ingwe_, are much to be dreaded when brought to
bay, and that anecdotes innumerable might be related of instances where
they have killed or seriously injured both white and black hunters.
The virus of their bite is very great. I remember once seeing seven
men belonging to a Zulu village awfully torn and mangled by a single
animal, and the wounds remained open for a long time, and ultimately
left great scars. On the other hand, I know of several who have died
where the injuries received were not such as to have been generally
fatal.” Sir W. C. Harris mentions it as a peculiarity of the leopard’s
attack that it strikes at the face; Drummond says nothing about this
trait, and the former author probably fell into some confusion of
ideas, caused by the well-known tendency of this species to tear open
the great vessels of the throat.
Panthers and leopards are only varieties of the same species, yet while
the reputation of the former is such as has been stated, hunters often
speak of the latter as if it were nearly harmless so far as human
beings are concerned. Leopards are described as having been shot right
and left in the jungle, treed by dogs and killed on limbs without
difficulty, pelted from the doorways of deserted huts, and speared
in the open from the saddle. Leveson, Drummond, and Baker relate
experiences of this kind, but the literature of the subject contains
many very different accounts of their prowess. Both in Asia and Africa
they have often been found to be extremely dangerous and destructive
animals. There is good reason why in heraldic blazonry the leopard
should be represented as _passant gardant_. The designers did not know
it, but the fact is that no animal capable of doing so much harm, and
that has as many evil deeds to answer for, is at once so enterprising,
so stealthy, and so full of cunning. Compared with him, the greater
_Felidæ_, on the one hand, and that much-abused assassin and robber,
the fox, upon the other, are “mild-mannered,” and might be called
bunglers.
When a tiger--and the same may be said of the lion--attempts to
carry out a scheme he has formed for the surprise and murder of some
man whose whereabouts he has ascertained, the design is often more
complete than the execution. His heavy yet muffled tread is sometimes
heard, he breaks dry sticks, rustles as he moves through parched
herbage, waves long grass in passing, so that any experienced eye can
tell he is there, puts his head out of cover prematurely, is apt to
cross open spaces when a circuit ought to be made; again, he cannot
keep his tail still, and as the moment approaches for making an end
of his victim, anticipation of the pleasure of putting the man to
death and devouring him overcomes his caution, and he begins to purr.
This is not a loud sound, but it is a very impressive one, and has
been frequently heard. But no creature’s senses can give warning of a
panther’s or leopard’s approach. Few people ever heard or saw one of
these beasts while coming. They steal upon their prey with the silence
and certainty of death. Their stalk is the perfection of skill. The
attack is rapid and fierce beyond comparison; and afterwards, unless
the ground is such as will retain a trail, this animal cannot be
followed. It is the most difficult to mark down of all beasts of prey,
the hardest to track on account of its many tricks. No kind of game is
so often hunted unsuccessfully.
Leopards get the advantage over a being far cleverer than any other
forest animal. Monkeys of all species detest tigers, but have an
intense dread of the spotted cats. They “swear” at the former, but fly
from the latter, and as for men, monkeys deride them. Panthers and
leopards catch these creatures in trees, on the ground, by day and by
night; while they are on the alert, and in moments when an apparent
absence of danger lulls these astute little beasts into a fatal feeling
of security.
A cattle-lifting panther, according to Pollok and Forsyth, is more
destructive than a tiger. On the great ranges where herds graze during
the time when pasture is destroyed by drought in a good part of India,
the depredations of these beasts cost the owners dearly, and they
likewise take a constant toll from those animals, cows principally,
which are kept at villages. A buffalo under ordinary circumstances is
safe, even if alone; and when the herd is united to resist, even he
with the stripes has not the slightest chance of success.
Cows, however, are the especial prey of panthers. In India these are of
comparatively small size, and preternaturally imbecile. The _Bovidæ_
are not a gifted family at their best, and when domestication relieves
them to a great extent from the necessity of taking care of themselves,
they lose much of the faculty which in wild forms is developed under
the stress of necessity. Year after year, and age after age, the
panther has been murdering Indian cattle in the same way, and they have
never originated the slightest measure of precaution or defence. The
full measure of their weakness of mind has been taken by the enemy, and
when he concludes to give up hunting, except as a pastime, and live on
beef, his prey may be said to come to him.
In 1863 Captain Forsyth hunted panthers on the higher Narbadá, under
the auspices of an old shikári, an unspeakable scoundrel, who had
killed more of them than anybody else whose exploits the annals of
sport with large game perpetuate. Bamanjee (the Brahman) seems to
have been exceptionally honest in his dealings with the Captain, and
to have given him an opportunity, rarely accorded to the hunters whom
he swindled, for making observations upon the habits and character
of these beasts. Forsyth relates his experiences in a way that will
serve as a summary of what has been already said about _Felis pardus_.
“The number of these animals in the districts around Jubbulpúr is
very great. The low rocky hills, ... full of hollows and caverns,
and overgrown with dense scrubby cover, afford them their favorite
retreats; while numbers of antelope and hog deer, goats, sheep,
pariah dogs, and pigs supply them with abundant food. A large male
panther will kill not very heavy cattle; but as a rule they confine
themselves to the smaller animals mentioned. They seldom reside very
far from villages, prowling around them at night in search of prey, and
retreating to their fastnesses before daybreak. Unlike the tiger, they
care little for the neighborhood of water, even in the hot weather,
drinking only at night, and generally at a distance from their midday
retreat.”
The scourge that a man-eating panther becomes, and those traits which
make him worse than either the lion or tiger when he has taken to
preying upon human beings, have been already given at some length; the
following statements, however, also by Forsyth, place the panther’s
enterprise and hardihood before us very vividly:--
“In my early hunting days I fell into the mistake of most sportsmen in
supposing that the panther might be hunted on foot with less caution
than the tiger. On two or three occasions I nearly paid dearly for
the error, and I now believe that the panther is really by far a more
dangerous animal to attack. He is, in the first place, much more
courageous. For, though he will generally sneak away unobserved as
long as he can, if once brought to close quarters he rarely fails to
charge with the utmost ferocity, fighting to the very last. He is also
much more active than the tiger, making immense springs clear off the
ground, which the other seldom does. He can conceal himself in the
most wonderful way, his spotted hide blending with the ground, and his
lithe, loose form being compressible into an inconceivably small space.
Further, he is so much less in depth and stoutness than a tiger, and
moves so much quicker, that he is far more difficult to hit in a vital
place. He can also climb trees, which the tiger cannot do, except for
a small distance up a thick, sloping trunk. A few years ago a panther
thus took a sportsman out of a high perch on a tree in the Chindwárá
district. And, lastly, his powers of offence are scarcely inferior to
those of the tiger himself, and are amply sufficient to be the death
of any man he gets hold of. When stationed at Damoh, near Jubbulpúr,
with a detachment of my regiment, I shot seven panthers and leopards
in less than a month, within a few miles of the station, chiefly by
driving them out with beaters; all of them charged that had the power
to do so, but the little cherub who watches over ‘griffins’ got us
out of it without damage either to myself or the beaters. One of the
smaller species [Forsyth means a leopard, which, together with Byth,
Jerdon, and other naturalists, he regarded as a true panther of less
dimensions than the other variety], really not more than five feet
long, I believe, charged me three several times up a bank to the very
muzzle of my rifles (of which I luckily had a couple), falling back
each time to the shot, but not thinking of trying to escape, and died
at last at my feet, with her teeth fixed in the root of a small tree.
“Another jumped on my horse, while passing through some long grass,
before it was fired at at all; and after being kicked off, charged my
groom and gun-carrier, who barely escaped by fleeing for their lives,
leaving my only gun in possession of the leopard. I had to ride to
cantonments to get another rifle, and gather together some beaters.
When we returned I took up my post on a rock that overlooked the patch
of grass, and the beaters had scarcely commenced their noise when the
leopard went at them like an arrow. An accident would certainly have
happened this time had my shots failed to stop this devil incarnate
before she reached them. She had cubs in the grass, which accounted for
her fury; but a tigress would have abandoned them to their fate in a
similar case. The last I killed was a man-eater, that took up his post
among the high crops surrounding a village, and killed and dragged in
women and children who ventured out of the place. He was a panther of
the largest size, and had been wounded by a shikári from a tree, ...
rendering him incapable of killing game. I was a week hunting him, as
he was very careful not to show himself when pursued, and at last I
shot him in a cow-house into which he had ventured, and killed several
head of cattle before the people had courage to shut the door.”
Among other peculiarities, says Forsyth, “their indifference to water
makes it extremely difficult to bring them to book; and indeed panthers
are far more generally met with by accident than secured by regular
hunting. When beating with elephants they are very rarely found,
considering their numbers; but they must be very frequently passed
at a short distance unobserved, in this kind of hunting. In 1862, I
was looking for a tigress and cubs near Khápá on the Lawá River in
Bétúl. Their tracks of a few days old led into a deep fissure in the
rocky banks of the river, above which I went, leaving the elephant
below, and threw in stones from the edge. Some way up I saw a large
panther steal out at the head and sneak across the plain. He was out
of shot, and I followed on his tracks, which were clear enough for a
few hundred yards, till, at the crossing of a small rocky nálá (gulch)
they disappeared. I could not make it out, and was returning to the
elephant, when I saw the driver making signals. He had followed me up
above, and had seen the panther break back along the little nálá which
led into the top of the ravine, and re-enter the latter. I then went
and placed myself so as to command the top of this ravine, and sent
people below to fling in stones; and presently the panther broke again
in the same place, this time galloping away openly across the plain. I
missed with both barrels of my rifle, but turned him over with a lucky
shot from a smooth-bore at more than two hundred yards. I then went up
to him on the elephant, and he made feeble attempts to rise and come at
me, but he was too far gone to succeed.
“The panther will charge an elephant with the greatest ferocity. In
1863, near Jubbulpúr, a party of us were beating a bamboo cover for
pigs, with a view to the sticking thereof (that is to say, riding them
down and spearing them from the saddle); my elephant was with the
beaters, when a shout from the latter announced that they had stumbled
on a panther. They took to trees, and I got on the elephant to turn
him out, while the rest exchanged their hog spears for rifles and
surrounded the place. She got up before me, bounding away over the low
bamboos, and I struck her on the rump with a light breech-loading gun
as she disappeared. Several shots from the trees failed to stop her,
and she took refuge in a very dense, thorny cover on the banks of a
little stream. Twice I passed up and down without seeing the brute, but
fired once into a log of wood in mistake for her, and was going along
the top of the cover for the third time, when the elephant pointed down
the bank with her extended trunk. We threw some stones in, but nothing
moved, and at last a peon came up with a huge stone on his head, which
he heaved down the bank. Next moment a yellow streak shot from the
bushes, and levelling the adventurous peon, like a flash of lightning
came at my elephant’s head, but just at the last spring, I broke her
back with the breech-loader, and she fell under the elephant’s trunk,
tearing at the earth and stones and her own body in her bloody rage.
“The method usually resorted to by old Bamanjee and other native
shikáris for killing panthers and leopards, was by tying out a kid,
with a line attached to a fish-hook through its ear, a pull at which
makes the poor little brute continue to squeak, after it has cried
itself to silence about its mother. No sentiment of humanity interferes
with the devices of the mild Hindu. A dog in a pit with a basket work
cover over it, and similarly attached to a line, is equally effective.
I have known panthers repeatedly to take animals they have killed up
into trees to devour, and once found the body of a child that had been
killed by a panther in the Bétúl District, so disposed of in the fork
of a tree. They are very often lost, I believe, by taking unobserved
to trees. Beating them out of cover with a strong body of beaters and
fireworks is, on the whole, the most successful way of hunting these
cunning brutes; but it is accompanied with a good deal of risk to the
beaters, as well as to the sportsman if he is over-venturesome; and it
is liable to end in disappointment in most instances. My own experience
is that the majority of panthers one finds, are come across more by
luck than good management.
“A large panther was making himself very troublesome ... in the
neighborhood of the Jubbulpúr and Mandlá road. He had killed several
children in different villages, and promised, unless suppressed,
to become a regular man-eater. I encamped for some days in the
neighborhood of his haunts, and the very first night the villain had
the impudence to kill and drag away a good-sized baggage pony out of
my camp. The night being warm I was sleeping outside for the sake of
coolness, and was awakened by a riving and gurgling noise close to my
bed. It was too dark to see; so I pulled out the revolver, that in
those uncertain times always lay under my pillow, and fired off a
couple of shots to scare the intruder. Getting a light, I was relieved
to find it was only the pony.” This animal did not return to its
“kill,” and Captain Forsyth’s watch was in vain.
There are certain writers, William H. Drummond, and Sir William
Cornwallis Harris, for example, from whose works it might be inferred
that in East Africa panthers and leopards were of a quite different
character from their Asiatic allies. Taking the evidence on record
with regard to this continent as a whole, the discrepancy disappears,
however, and _Felis pardus_ there, appears in much the same aspect
as elsewhere. The animals are necessarily modified to some extent by
differences implied in a change of province, but in the main they are
reported by observers as exhibiting like traits, and performing much
the same exploits with those that have been given.
THE JAGUAR
_Felis onca_, generally called the jaguar, and very often, in the
regions he inhabits, _el tigre_, or the tiger, is a large and heavy
animal; coming, in respect to its average size, between the Asiatic
panther and lion. It is, perhaps, the most exclusively inter-tropical
form among _Felidæ_,--or at least the larger species of that family;
and although it passes beyond equatorial latitudes both to the
north and south, and is found at considerable elevations where the
temperature is low, this beast is essentially an inhabitant of hot
countries.
[Illustration: THE JAGUAR.
[_From a photograph by Ottomar Anschütz. Copyright._]]
H. H. Smith and others look upon the black jaguar of the Brazilian
highlands as a distinct species, and one whose range is different from
that of the spotted animals of the Amazon valleys and basin of La
Plata. W. N. Lockington (“Standard Natural History”) is one of several
authorities who consider that there may be several true species of
_Felis onca_, besides geographical varieties. In short, the zoölogy of
this great American cat is not settled, and the records relating to its
character and habits are rather scanty.
Looking at a full-grown jaguar carelessly, one might mistake it for
a large and thick-set panther, with a rather short, clumsy tail,
and very massive limbs. But besides that the angular ocelli on its
coat--irregular black borders with an enclosed spot of the same
color--are not rosettes, the _ensemble_ is scarcely the same with that
of a panther, although anatomically these species are nearly identical.
The true home of the jaguar is in the great woodlands of the Amazon.
“Here,” says Lockington, “he reigns supreme; the terror of the forest,
as the lion is of the desert, and the tiger of the jungle; the
acknowledged and dreaded lord of man and beast.” Charles Darwin found
this species in the basin of the La Plata River, living in reed belts
and around lake shores. Unlike the panther, jaguars cannot live without
a constant supply of water. Falconer asserts that in some places these
animals subsist chiefly upon fish. At all events, they are very expert
in catching them, and fish even in rivers whose banks abound with game.
As a rule, however, that large rodent, the capybara, now the only
living representative of an ancient family otherwise extinct, is the
American tiger’s chief article of food, and Darwin reports a saying
among the Indians to the effect that man has little to fear from
“el tigre’s” attacks where these are plentiful. Another point of
resemblance between this beast and the panther is their mutual fondness
for monkeys.
Natives believe that the jaguar fascinates them. All instances which
have been given of the exercise of this power seem, however, to be
susceptible of a different interpretation, and naturalists generally
discredit the idea that such an influence is ever exerted. Hypnotic
phenomena, however, are actual facts, and it is undoubtedly premature
to limit the possibility of their induction to human beings.
Apart from this matter, concerning which there is no certainty, it is a
fact that the brutes in question take their prey mostly on the surface
of the ground, to some extent in water, and likewise among the limbs
of trees. They are indiscriminate feeders, and besides all species of
land animals that inhabit their range, both wild and domesticated,
they destroy vast numbers of turtles and their eggs, lizards, fish,
shell-covered species, and even insects. So long as anything has blood,
whether red or white, in its body, it does not come amiss to what Wood
calls “the jaguar’s ravenous appetite.” This trait makes him very
destructive, and in some places domestic animals have been extirpated.
The jaguar, although he principally subsists upon game, hunts men
also, as might be anticipated both from his size, strength, and family
traits. An almost unarmed Indian of these regions is no match for a
brute like this, even when provided with the blow-gun used in those
latitudes.
Being as lazy as a lion, and from his usually abundant supplies,
generally in good condition, the jaguar most commonly ambushes prey.
Not always, however, for T. P. Bigg-Wither reports that they have been
known to follow upon the trail of companies for days, while awaiting
a favorable opportunity to seize one of the party. When “el tigre”
designs to make a meal of peccary, the character of that creature
compels him to surprise it. This is a very bold and inveterately
revengeful animal, and moreover is rarely found except in herds. An
attack upon one member of the band is instantly and fiercely resented
by all, so that strategy upon the jaguar’s part is essential to success.
It is not at all unusual to find people congratulating themselves upon
the assumed fact that formidable brutes are unacquainted with their own
strength and skill. This is one of the many mistakes made concerning
lower animals.
Returning to the jaguar’s general description, one of his most
eccentric propensities is the pursuit of alligators. The jaguar kills
and eats these reptiles from choice; or in many instances, simply bites
their tails off and lets them go. H. W. Bates found a recently-killed
alligator partly eaten. Orton refers to this habit as well known, and
both Smith and Wallace speak of it as a matter of common notoriety.
Like all species among the _Felidæ_, this one is nocturnal. Their
“dull, deadly-looking eyes,” as Barton Premium describes them, are not
adapted to excess of light. In remote and secluded places, however, and
in the dark recesses of a tropical forest they prowl at all hours, and
the author has met with these beasts in the full glare of a vertical
sun.
When a jaguar sets out on a foraging expedition at night, he begins
to roar like the lion as he leaves his lair; and again like his
majesty, he keeps this up at more or less regular intervals until he
actually begins to hunt. Jaguars are noisy animals at all times, says
Darwin, but they are especially so upon stormy nights, when their
“deep, grating roar” reverberates through the forest in a manner very
impressive to those unaccustomed to the sound.
Like all animals with retractile claws, they are in the habit of
sharpening them, as it is called; but it is not for the purpose of
putting a point upon his talons that a jaguar draws them through the
bark of trees. All the cats are given to trying how far they can reach,
and all of them, both in killing game and feeding, get their nails
clogged with shreds of flesh. It is to cleanse them that they scratch
tree trunks, from time to time, as they go along. Darwin asserts that
each animal has an especial tree to which he resorts for this purpose.