The Guerilla Chief, and Other Tales

by Mayne Reid

Among the felidae, of the second class, as regards size—that is, those next in size to the lion and tiger—there are five spotted species, quite distinct from one another, although they are usually spoken of under the common appellation of panthers or leopards. Four of these belong to the Old World—the true leopard, panther, the cheetah, or hunting leopard, and the ounce. The first two are very much alike, and can be distinguished from one another only by the skilled zoologist. The leopard is an inhabitant of the warmer countries of both Asia and Africa, while, as far as I can ascertain, the panther is found only in Southern Asia and the great Indian islands. The cheetah, easily identified by its shape as well as markings, its black spots being without the rings, is distributed over a vast range, comprising the whole continent of Africa, with a large portion of that of Asia.

The fourth of the great spotted cats of the Old World is the least known. Buffon procured a single skin, and gave to the animal the appellation of the “ounce;” but his description is worthless, and his knowledge is confined to the expression of a belief that it came from some eastern country—perhaps Persia. Since the time of the French naturalist the “ounce” has been a mystery; and although stuffed skins may be seen in many museums, no one appears to know whence they have been procured, or anything of the habits of the animal from which they have been stripped. But this uncertainty need continue no longer. Beyond doubt, the ounce of Buffon is the white leopard of the Himalayas, of late years often met with by Anglo-Indian hunters amongst the highest summits of those mountains, and rarely descending far below the line of the snow.

The jaguar, though often confounded with the leopard and panther of the Old World, is an entirely distinct animal, exclusively confined to America, and found there only in countries of a tropical or sub-tropical character. It is in the hottest tropical regions where this creature attains to its greatest perfection, in the size and strength if its body, and the fierceness of its disposition.

Buffon, who had a keen antipathy to everything American, describes the jaguar as an innocuous creature of inferior dimensions; but indeed this writer, whom the French love to designate as “a great naturalist,” was little else than a verbose compiler, and his knowledge of natural history would scarcely exceed that of many a schoolboy of the present day.

Humboldt more correctly characterises the jaguars, when he states that he has seen specimens which, in point of size, equal the royal tiger of India; and another distinguished naturalist, Von Tschudi, has given the measurements of one, made by himself on the spot where it was killed, in one of the Peruvian valleys, and which goes far towards confirming the statements of the great scientific traveller.

I have never myself met with a specimen of the jaguar equalling the tiger of India in size, but more than one have I seen as large as the tigress; and I believe the true state of the case to be this:—The largest jaguars are about equal in size to the smallest tigers.

As regards fierceness of disposition, and the danger to be apprehended from an encounter with them, they are indeed the rivals of either the tiger or lion of the Old World; and the disbelief in this, often expressed by flippant writers who have never set foot in a South American forest, is simply an impertinent absurdity. Hundreds of human beings dwelling upon the banks of the Amazon, the Oronoco, the Magdalena, and other large tropical rivers, have fallen victims to the savage instincts of these carnivorous creatures; and, in the eastern Andes of Peru, it is well known that more than one village has been abandoned by its inhabitants, for no other reason than to avoid the danger of being devoured by the jaguars, which like the tigers of India, instead of diminishing in numbers, usually increase by the proximity of a settlement.

It is probable that there are several varieties of the jaguar, perhaps species, distinct from one another, as the leopards of the Old World are from the panthers.

But the black jaguar does not appear anything more than an accidental circumstance in the colouring, just as the “black panther of Java”—also found in Bengal—is but a darker variety of the panther itself.

And yet, taking the testimony of the native inhabitants of South America—Indians, Portuguese, and Spaniards—there would seem to exist something more than a mere accidental difference. All agree in stating that the black jaguar is fiercer, larger, and more powerful than the fulvous kind.