M. de la Borde describes three species of rapacious animals at Cayenne; first, the jaguar, which they call tiger; the second, the cougar, or red tiger; (the former is about the size of a large bull-dog, and the latter much smaller) and the third they call black tiger, which we have termed black cougar. ([fig. 102]) “Its head, continues M. de la Borde, is somewhat like that of a common cougar; it has long black hair, a long tail, and large whiskers, but is much less than the other. The skin of both the jaguar and cougar are easily penetrated even with the arrows of the Indians. When very hard set for food, they will attack cows and oxen; in this case they spring upon their backs, and having brought them to the ground, they tear them to pieces, first opening their breasts and bellies, to glut themselves with their blood; they then drag pieces of flesh into the wood, covering the remainder with branches of trees, and keeping near to feed upon it, until it begins to putrify, when they touch it no more. They will keep near a flock of wild hogs, for the purpose of seizing the stragglers, but cautiously avoid being surrounded by them. They often seek for prey on the sea-shore, and devour the eggs left there by the turtles: they also make prey of the caïmans, or alligators, lizards, and fishes; to take the former, they use the craft of lying down by the edge of the water, which they strike so as to make sufficient noise to attract his attention, who will come towards the place, and no sooner puts his head above water, than his seducer makes a certain spring at him, kills and drags him to some convenient place where he may devour him at leisure. It is said by the Indians that the jaguar decoys the agouti in the same manner, by counterfeiting his cry. They sometimes eat the leaves and buds of the Indian figs; they are excellent swimmers, and cross the largest rivers. They seldom have more than one young at a time, which they hide in the trunks of hollow trees. They eat their flesh at Cayenne, and, when young, it is as white as that of a rabbit.”
The cougar is easily tamed, and rendered nearly as familiar as domestic animals.
THE gentlemen of the Academy of Sciences have given a very accurate description of the Lynx, and have discussed with equal ingenuity and erudition the circumstances and names relative to this animal, which occur in the writings of the ancients. They have shewn that the lynx of Ælian is the same animal which they have dissected and described under the name of Lupus-cervarius, and justly censure those who have taken it for the Thos of Aristotle. This discussion is enriched with observations and reflections equally interesting and pertinent; it is a pity, therefore, they had not adopted its real name of lynx, instead of that which is the same that Gaza gave to the thos of Aristotle. Having, like Oppian, intimated that there are two species or races of the lynx, the one large, which chaces the stag and fallow-deer, and the other smaller, which scarcely hunts any thing but the hare, they appear to have confounded the two species together, namely, the spotted lynx, which is commonly found in the northern countries; and the lynx of the Levant or Barbary, whose skin is of an uniform colour. I have seen both these animals alive, and they closely resemble each other in many particulars. They have both long stripes of black hair at the extremities of their ears. This very circumstance, by which Ælian first distinguished the lynx, belongs, in fact, to these animals only, and perhaps it was this which induced the Academy to consider them as the same species. But, independently of the difference of colour and spots upon the hair, it will appear extremely probable that they belong to two distinct species.
Klein says, that the most beautiful lynx belongs to Africa and Asia in general, and to Persia in particular; that he had seen one at Dresden, which came from Africa, which was finely spotted, and of a considerable height; that those of Europe, especially from Prussia, and other northern countries are less pleasing to the eye, that their colour is little, if at all, inclined to white, but rather of a reddish hue, with spots confused and huddled together. Without absolutely denying what M. Klein has here advanced, I must declare I could never learn from any other authority that the lynx is an inhabitant of the warm climates of Asia and Africa. Kolbe is the only writer who mentions the lynx as common at the Cape of Good Hope, and as perfectly resembling that of Brandenburg in Germany; but I have discovered so many mistakes in the writings of this author, that I never gave much credit to his testimony, unless when supported by that of others. Now all travellers mention having seen the spotted lynx in the North of Germany, in Lithuania, Muscovy, Siberia, Canada, and other northern regions of both continents; but not one, whose accounts I have read, asserts he met with this animal in the warm climates of Africa or Asia. The lynxes of the Levant, Barbary, Arabia, and other hot climates, are, as I before observed, of one uniform colour, and without spots; they cannot, therefore, be the same as that mentioned by Klein, which he says was finely spotted, nor that of Kolbe, which, according to his statement, perfectly resembled those of Brandenburgh. It would be difficult to reconcile these testimonies with the information we have from other hands. The lynx is certainly more common in cold than in temperate climates, and is at least very rare in hot ones. He was, indeed, known to the Greeks and Romans; a circumstance which does not, however, infer that he came from Africa, or the southern provinces of Asia. Pliny, on the contrary, says, that the first of them which were seen at Rome, came from Gaul in the time of Pompey. At present there are none in France, except possibly a few in the Alpine and Pyrenean mountains. But the Romans, under the name of Gaul, comprehended several of the northern countries; and, besides, France is not at this time so cold as it was in those times.
The most beautiful skins of the lynx come from Siberia, as belonging to the Loup-cervier, and from Canada, under the name of chat-cervier, because, like all other animals, they are smaller in the new than in the old world; and are therefore compared to the wolf in Europe, and to the cat in Canada. What seems to have deceived M. Klein, and might have deceived even more able writers is, first, that the ancients have said that India furnished lynxes to the god Bacchus; secondly, Pliny has placed the lynx in Ethiopia, and has said their hides and claws were prepared at Carpathos, now Scarpantho or Zerpantho, an island in the Mediterranean, between Rhodes and Candia; thirdly, Gesner has allotted a particular article to the lynx of Asia or Africa, in which there is the following extract of a letter from Baron Balicze. “You have not,” says he to Gesner, “mentioned in your history of animals, the Indian or African lynx. As Pliny has mentioned it, the authority of that great man has induced me to send you a drawing of this animal, that you may include it in your list. This drawing was made at Constantinople. This animal is very different from the lynx of Germany, being much larger, has shorter and rougher hair, &c.” Gesner, without making any reflections on this letter, contents himself with giving the substance of it, and intimating within a parenthesis, that the drawing never came to hand.
To prevent a continuance of these errors, let it be observed, first, that poets and painters have affixed tigers, panthers, and lynxes, to the car of Bacchus, as best pleased their fancies; or rather because all fierce and spotted animals were consecrated to that god; secondly, that it is the word lynx which constitutes the whole of the ambiguity, since by comparing what Pliny says in one[M] passage with two others[N] it is plain that the Ethiopian animal which he calls lynx, is by no means the same as the chaus, or lupus-cervarius, which comes from the northern countries; and that it was from this name being improperly applied that the Baron Balicze was deceived though he considers the Indian lynx as a different animal from the German luchs, or our lynx. This Indian or African lynx, which he has described as larger and more full of spots than our lynx, was in all probability, a kind of panther. However true or erroneous this last conjecture may be, it appears that the lynx, of which we are now treating, is a stranger in the southern countries, and is found only in the northern parts of the new and old continents. Olaus says this animal is common in the forests of the North of Europe; Olearius, in speaking of Muscovy, asserts the same thing; Rosinus Lentilius observes that the lynx is common in Courland and Lithuania, and that those of Cassubia, a province of Pomerania, are very small, and not so much spotted as those of Poland and Lithuania; and lastly, Paul Jovius confirms these testimonies by adding, that the finest skins of the lynx come from Siberia, and that there is a great traffic carried on with them at Ustivaga, a town about 600 miles from Moscow.
[M] Vide Pliny, lib. VIII. cap. 19.