As the word Tiger is a generic name, given several animals of different
species, it is proper to begin with distinguishing them from each
other. Leopards and Panthers have often been confounded together, and
are called Tigers by most travellers. The Ounce, a small species of
Panther, which is easily tamed, and used by the Orientals in the chace,
has been taken for the Panther itself, and described as such by the
name of Tiger. The Lynx, and that called the Lion's provider, have
also sometimes received the name of Panther, and sometimes Ounce. In
Africa, and in the southern parts of Asia, these animals are common;
but the real tiger, and the only one which ought to be so called, is
scarce, was little known by the ancients, and is badly described by the
moderns. Aristotle does not mention him; and Pliny merely speaks of him
as an animal of prodigious velocity; _tremendæ velocitatis animal_;[A]
adding, that he was a much more scarce animal than the Panther, since
Augustus presented the first to the Romans at the dedication of the
theatre of Marcellus, while so early as the time of Scaurus, this Ædile
sent 150 panthers, and afterwards 400 were given by Pompey, and 420
by Augustus, to the public shews at Rome. Pliny, however, gives no
description of the tiger, or any of its characteristics. Oppian and
Solinus appear to be the first who observed that the tiger is marked
with long streaks, and the panther with round spots. This, indeed, is
one of the characteristics which distinguishes the true tiger from a
number of animals that have been so called. Strabo, in speaking of
the real tiger, gives Megasthenes as his authority, for saying that
in India there are tigers twice as large as the lion. The tiger then
stands described by the ancients as an animal that is fierce and
swift, marked with long stripes, and exceeding the lion in size; nor
has Gesner, nor the other modern naturalists, who have treated of the
tiger, added any thing to these observations of the ancients.
[Footnote A: Pliny Nat. Hist. lib. viii. cap. xviii.]
In the French language all those skins of which the hair is short, and
are marked with round and distinct spots, are called tiger-skins, and
travellers sharing in this error, have called all animals so marked
by the general name of tigers; even the academy of sciences have been
borne away by this torrent, and have adopted the appellation to all,
although by dissection they found them materially different.
The most general cause, as we intimated in the article of the lion,
of these ambiguous terms in Natural History, arose from the necessity
of giving names to the unknown productions of the New World, and thus
the animals were called after such of the old continent to whom they
had the smallest resemblance. From the general denomination of tiger
to every animal whose skin was spotted, instead of one species of that
name, we now have nine or ten, and consequently the history of these
animals is exceedingly embarrassed, writers have applied to one species
what ought to have been ascribed to another.
To dispel the confusion which necessarily results from these erroneous
denominations, particularly among those which have been commonly
called tigers, I have resolved to give a comparative enumeration of
quadrupeds, in which I shall distinguish, 1. Those which are peculiar
to the old continent, and were not found in America when first
discovered. 2. Those which are natives of the new continent, and were
unknown in the old. 3. Those which existing alike in both continents,
without having been carried from one to the other by man, may be
considered as common to both. For which purpose it has been necessary
to collect and arrange the scattered accounts given by the historians
of America, and those who first visited this continent as travellers.