In Africa the lion has for his fellows the Leopard and the Panther. Many writers at one time confounded these two Felidæ, and even classified them with the Indian tiger. For the vulgar, every great cat with a spotted skin is a tiger. But scientific naturalists neither apply this name to the American jaguar nor to other spotted Felidæ of the Old or New World; and it is with difficulty they now agree to recognize in the Leopard and the Panther two ill-defined varieties of the same species. Assuredly they exhibit very marked differences. The Leopard is nearly as large as the lion; his limbs are robust, his head is strong. From nose to tail he measures four feet, his tail is two feet and a half long, and his body so flexible that he accomplishes the most surprising leaps, and swims, and climbs trees, or crawls along the ground, serpent-like, with admirable ease. Compared with the jaguar and panther of naturalists, he is uniformly of a paler and more yellowish colour, and rather smaller, while the spots on his skin are rose-formed, or consist of several dots partially united into a circular figure in some instances, and in others into a quadrangular, triangular, or other less determinate forms. The lower part of the neck and inner parts of the limbs are white; the spots are continued upon the tail, which is long, and black at the extremity.
The Panther is larger than the leopard, measuring about six feet and a half from nose to tail, which is itself about three feet long. On his sleek hide the spots are disposed in circles of four or five, with, usually, a central spot in each circle, in which, as well as in his deeper colour, he differs from the leopard. Both are handsome, stealthy, and ferocious animals; supple, agile, and muscular. The leopard (Felis leopardus) is a native of Africa, principally ranging along its western coast and on the confines of the Sahara. The panther (Felis pardus) is also an African denizen, though likewise found in Arabia, Persia, and Hindostan. During the day he lurks in the thickets and among the tall grasses, but when the shades of night descend he issues from his lair, and haunts the brooks and pools whither the herbivora resort to quench their thirst. There, upon some rock, he lies in ambuscade, commanding the track pursued by innocent victims, and darting with unerring precision upon the first which presents itself.
Neither leopard nor panther often ventures to assail man. When attacked by him, they seek at first to make their escape, and only turn at bay when escape is impossible. In Java, and some other of the great Indian islands, there exists a black panther, which has gained, it is difficult to say how, the reputation of extraordinary ferocity and daring. Sometimes, in the world of man, great reputations are built upon equally slight foundations. He owes his fame to the imagination of the natives, and differs from his congeners in no single respect but the blackish colour of his skin. A skilful naturalist, who was for some years a resident in Java, relates that, while botanizing in the fields and jungles early in the day, he frequently roused the black panthers in their lairs. At first he was somewhat startled by the apparition of an animal of such terrible renown, but seeing him turn tail very quickly on his approach, he soon grew re-assured, and troubled himself no more at these rencontres than if he had met a dog or a cat.
We now come to the most formidable of all the Carnaria: the Tiger, properly so called, or Royal Tiger, whose portrait Buffon has been pleased to paint with his boldest brush and most glowing colours, without any other motive apparently than a love of antithesis, or the artist’s desire to give force and effect to a striking picture. He had endowed the king of animals with all the regal qualities his imagination could suggest, and by way of contrast he ascribed to the tiger the lowest and cruellest instincts. He painted him as the Moloch of the brute creation; the Domitian, Caligula, or Nero of the jungles. He was blood-thirsty, treacherous, cowardly, and hideous. His limbs were too short, his head was too large, he was ill-proportioned; in a word, on the unfortunate beast he poured out all the vials of his satiric wrath.
With this pièce de fantaisie it would be curious to contrast the graver and more authentic description of the impartial Daubenton. He asserted that the tiger was very little known to Europeans, and that in France there existed but a single specimen, and that a very badly prepared one, in the “Cabinet du Roi.” But we are now better informed, and the tiger, perhaps, up to a certain point, is rehabilitated. Let us take him first in his physical aspect. All travellers agree in describing him as the handsomest of animals. He has not the grave countenance, the majestic attitudes of the lion; but he has all the grace, all the suppleness, all the lively and undulatory movements of the domestic cat. He does not stand so high upon his legs as the lion, and he lacks that full flowing mane which invests the physiognomy of the latter with a human and truly noble air; but all the parts of his head and body, despite of Buffon, are admirably proportioned. Not quite so tall as the lion, and less robust in appearance, he is endowed with a surprising vigour. He can carry off, while in full career, and making the most rapid leaps, the heaviest prey—a kid, for instance, an antelope of full size, even a bull, it is said, and, necessarily, a man. Finally, his skin, symmetrically striped, like a zebra’s, with wavy bands of brown and black, on a reddish ground, with the contour of the face, the chin and belly of the purest white, defies all comparison. The stripes of his head, legs, and tail are disposed with irreproachable symmetry in curves of the most graceful character. So much for his physical character; let us pass to his moral.
His appetites, and consequently his manners and instincts, differ but little from those of the other Felidæ, and, in particular, of the lion. While he has a keen love of living flesh and warm blood, he does not scorn to return, under the pressure of hunger, to a dead prey already partially devoured. Like all the carnaria, a sagacious instinct prompts him to kill in provision for coming as well as for present hunger. This is the reason that Buffon has stigmatized him as “unnecessarily cruel.”
“The bound with which he throws himself upon his prey,” says an English naturalist, “is as wonderful in its extent as it is terrible in its effects.” Pennant justly observes that the distance which it clears in this deadly leap is scarcely credible. Man is a mere puppet in his gripe; and the Indian buffalo is not only borne down by the ferocious beast, but carried off by his enormous strength. If he fails in his spring, it has been said that he will take to flight. This may be true in certain instances; but, in general, far from slinking away, he pursues the affrighted prey with a speedy activity which is seldom exerted in vain. Hence we are led to the observation of Pliny celebrating his swiftness, for which the Roman zoologist has been censured, and apparently most unjustly; nor is he the only author among the ancients who notices his speed. Appian speaks of the swift tiger as the offspring of the zephyr. Pliny, says Pennant, has been frequently taken to task by the moderns for calling the tiger “animal tremendæ velocitatis;” they allow it great agility in its bounds, but deny it swiftness in pursuit. Two travellers of authority, both eye-witnesses, confirm what Pliny says: the one, indeed, only mentions in general his vast fleetness; the other saw a trial between one and a swift horse, whose rider escaped merely by getting in time amidst a circle of armed men. The chase of this animal was a favourite diversion with the great Cam-Hi, the Chinese monarch, in whose company our countryman, Mr. Bell, that faithful traveller, and the Perè Gerbillon, saw these proofs of the tiger’s speed.
The Latin “tigris” is from a Persian word signifying “swift as an arrow,” which we find incorporated in the name of the river Tigris.