Such a small mouth cannot hold many teeth, and the front ones, though sharp and pointed, are small, for the tiger does not fight with his teeth like the wolf, but strikes with his heavy paw. But the eye-teeth are immensely large, strong, and dagger-like, to hold the prey and tear the flesh apart, and all the double teeth behind, especially the last bottom tooth and the one to match it above, have very sharp cutting edges, so that, when the two jaws work against each other they divide the flesh like a pair of shears. Lastly, his tongue is not soft and fleshy, so as to serve for tasting, but very rough, and covered with horny pimples which serve to rasp the flesh from the bones of his prey.
Thus, in all the animals of the cat tribe, such as the lion, the tiger, the jaguar, and their relations, every part of the body has become fitted to help them in the work of destruction; and even their near relation the Hyæna, though he cannot keep his claws sharp by drawing them in, nor leap so well because his hind legs are short, makes up for this by his immensely strong jaw and conical teeth with which he attacks his prey, instead of using his paw, and which serve him to split open even the strongest thigh bone of a horse or ox, or to gnaw the ends to extract the marrow.
With all these advantages, we shall not wonder that the feline family and their near relations were the rulers of the forests and plains and mountains till man came to conquer them, or that lions and large cats, something like those living now, together with the fierce sabre-toothed tiger (Machairodus), roamed over Europe, Asia, and North and South America, where the crowds of vegetable-feeders offered them plenty of food. They were even numerous in England, where the lion chased the elk and the wild cattle, before he was driven back to Africa, Persia, and Bengal. No doubt in those days he scraped out his den in the valley of the Thames, as he still does in some quiet spot in the African plains where he hunts alone, except when his little ones are born, and then for some time he lives with his lioness, helping her to provide for them, and taking out the cubs as soon as they are a year old to teach them to hunt, to leap upon their prey, and to strike it with their paw, educating them like a true father in getting their living. And when they are three years old, the young lions will go off and meet together, two or three in a party, till in the spring each one seeks a wife for himself, having many a fierce battle with other lions before he can win her, and finding then the use of his thick mane in protecting his neck from the teeth of his rivals.
So the “king of the beasts” lives
“On the mountains bred,
Glorious in strength;”
for though by no means so large as people generally imagine, compared to the buffaloes, or horses, or large antelopes which he attacks, yet his immense strength generally secures him the victory over all but the rhinoceros and the elephant, and he feeds in a royal manner, sharing his hunting grounds only with the leopard, and leaving the remains of his feast for the hyænas and jackals following in his track.
Then just where his reign ends in Bengal, that of the tiger begins, that splendid and ferocious cat, larger even than the lion, which spares no animal, and will fight till death even with those stronger than himself. When we see our own house-cat playing with a mouse, striking at it, letting it escape, and at last giving it the final grip, we are watching in miniature the cruel game which is played in the dense jungles of Asia by the tiger with the antelopes, young buffaloes, and other terrified animals. Yet when we see the mother cat caressing her little ones, this too is true to tiger life, for though the father does not watch and care for his children as the lion does, the tigress loves them with the utmost devotion, and attacks all who come near them, dying sooner than forsake her cubs.
So in Africa and Asia the lion and the leopard reign, while the tiger is confined to Asia, ranging up to the snowy regions in the Caucasus Mountains and Mantchuria, where he is covered with a warm coat of hair. Yet all these animals have but a small kingdom now compared to olden times; and man has so cleared the ground in other parts of the world that we must travel away to South America to find the other large felines, the fierce Jaguar and Puma. There the jaguar, second only in strength to the tiger, carries all before him, making havoc among the peccaries and the herds of wild horses, and even fishing in the rivers for turtles and fish; scooping the turtles out of their shell with his sharp claws, and conquering every animal except the great ant-bear in whose embrace he has been found dead after he had also killed his enemy. The puma, meanwhile, contents himself usually with smaller prey,—sheep and rheas, opossums and monkeys, for he can climb like a cat, and passes much of his life in the trees. Thus, though the cat family wander over the whole earth, the larger kinds live chiefly in the warm parts of the world where life is luxuriant and man has not yet driven them out.
But these are not all the wild flesh-feeders. There remains a third group—a lazy, easy-going, lumbering group, which, though they spread from the equator to the poles, have taken chiefly to temperate and colder regions for their home, to mixed food for their nourishment, and have gone off on a line as far from the wolves on the one side as the lions have on the other.