JACKAL.
During the night the cry of the jackal frequently announces the tiger’s presence. When one of these vile animals is no longer able to hunt from age, or when he has been expelled from his troop, he is said to become the provider of the tiger, who, after having satiated himself on the spoil, leaves the remains to his famished scout.
The tiger, who on the declivities of the Himalayas tears to pieces the swift-footed antelope, lacerates on the desert sand coasts of Java the tardy tortoise, when at nightfall it leaves the sea to lay its eggs in the drift-sand at the foot of the dunes. ‘Hundreds of tortoise skeletons lie scattered about the strand, many of them five feet long and three feet broad; some bleached by time, others still fresh and bleeding. High in the air a number of birds of prey wheel about, scared by the traveller’s approach. Here is the place where the turtles are attacked by the wild dogs. In packs of from twenty to fifty, the growling rabble assail the poor sea animal at every accessible point, gnaw and tug at the feet and at the head, and succeed by united efforts in turning the huge creature upon its back. Then the abdominal scales are torn off, and the ravenous dogs hold a bloody meal on the flesh, intestines, and eggs of their defenceless prey. Sometimes, however, the turtle escapes their rage, and dragging its lacerating tormentors along with it, succeeds in regaining the friendly sea. Nor do the dogs always enjoy an undisturbed repast; often during the night, the “lord of the wilderness,” the royal tiger, bursts out of the forest, pauses for a moment, casts a glance over the strand, approaches slowly, and then with one bound, accompanied by a terrific roar, springs among the dogs, scattering the howling band like chaff before the wind. And now it is the tiger’s turn to feast; but even he, though rarely, is sometimes disturbed by man. Thus on this lonely, melancholy coast, wild dogs and tigers wage an unequal war with the inhabitants of the ocean.’[39]
After the tiger and the lion, the Panther and the Leopard are the mightiest felidæ of the Old World. Although differently spotted, the ocelli or rounded marks on the panther being larger and more distinctly formed, they are probably only varieties of one and the same species, as many intermediate individuals have been observed.
Both animals are widely diffused through the tropical regions of the Old World, being natives of Africa, Persia, China, India, and many of the Indian islands; so that they have a much more extensive range than either the tiger or the lion. The manner in which they seize their prey, lurking near the sides of woods, and darting forward with a sudden spring, resembles that of the tiger; and the chase of the panther is said to be more dangerous than that of the lion, as it easily climbs the trees and pursues its enemy upon the branches.
The Cheetah, or hunting leopard (Gueparda jubata, guttata), which inhabits the greater part both of Asia and Africa, exhibits in its form and habits a mixture of the feline and canine tribes. Resembling the panther by its spotted skin, it is more elevated on its legs and less flattened on the fore part of its head. Its brain is more ample, and its claws touch the ground while walking, like those of the dog, which it resembles still further by its mild and docile nature. In India and Persia, where the Cheetahs are employed in the chase, they are carried, chained and hoodwinked, to the field in low cars. When the hunters come within view of a herd of antelopes, the Cheetah is liberated, and the game is pointed out to him: he does not, however, immediately dash forward in pursuit, but steals along cautiously till he has nearly approached the herd unseen, when, with a few rapid and vigorous bounds, he darts on the timid game and strangles it almost instantaneously. Should he, however, fail in his first efforts and miss his prey, he attempts no pursuit, but returns to the call of his master, evidently disappointed, and generally almost breathless.
The same radical differences which draw so wide a line of demarcation between the monkeys of the Old and the New World are found also to distinguish the feline races of both hemispheres, so that it would be as vain to search in the American forests and savannahs for the Numidian lion, or the striped tiger, as on the banks of the Ganges or the Senegal for the tawny puma, or the spotted jaguar. While in the African plains the swift-footed springbok falls under the impetuous bound of the panther—or while the tiger and the buffalo engage in mortal combat in the Indian jungle—the bloodthirsty Jaguar, concealed in the high grass of the American llanos, lies in wait for the wild horse or the passing steer.
The arrival of the Spaniards in the New World, so destructive to most of the Indian tribes with whom they came into contact, was beneficial at least to the large felidæ of tropical America, for they first introduced the horse and the ox into the western hemisphere, where these useful animals, finding a new and congenial home in the boundless savannahs and pampas which extend almost uninterruptedly from the Apure to Patagonia, have multiplied to an incredible extent. Since then the jaguar no longer considers the deer of the woods, the graceful agouti, or the slow capybara as his chief prey, but rejoices in the blood of the steed or ox, and is much more commonly met with in the herd-teeming savannahs than in the comparatively meagre hunting-grounds of the forest.
Of all the carnivora of the New World, perhaps with the sole exception of the grisly and the polar bears, the tyrants of the North American solitudes, the Jaguar is the most formidable, resembling the panther by his spotted skin, but almost equalling the Bengal tiger in size and power. He roams about at all times of the day, swims over broad rivers, and even in the water proves a most dangerous foe, for when driven to extremities he frequently turns against the boat, and forces his assailants to seek their safety by jumping overboard. Many an Indian, while wandering through thinly populated districts, where swampy thickets alternate with open grass plains, has been torn to pieces by the jaguar, and in many a lonely plantation the inhabitants hardly venture to leave their enclosures after sunset, for fear of his attacks. During Tschudi’s sojourn in Northern Peru, a jaguar penetrated into the hut of an Englishman who had settled in those parts, and dragging a boy of ten years out of his hammock, tore him to pieces and devoured him. Far from being afraid of man, this ferocious animal springs upon him when alone, and when pressed by hunger will even venture during the daytime into the mountain villages to seek its prey.