The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two

by Sarath Kumar Ghosh

Jaguar
Photographs from the American Museum of Natural History, N. Y.

First, I must mention that all leopards can climb trees, just like cats. People believe that once upon a time lions and tigers could also climb trees. Of course, they climbed only big trees, which have a very thick bark into which they could dig their claws deep enough to bear their weight. But now the lion and the tiger have forgotten how to climb trees. Perhaps they did not keep up the use of their power to climb trees.

But the leopard has kept up his habit of climbing trees. In fact that is the way he usually catches his prey. Does not that seem wonderful? I shall explain how he catches his prey in that way.

He chooses a tree near a stream, or near a pool of water, where different animals come to drink. The leopard climbs up to a bough of the tree, about ten or twelve feet from the ground. He lies flat on the bough and waits.

Presently a deer comes to the water to drink. The leopard waits till the deer is quite near, perhaps actually passing under the bough. Then suddenly the leopard jumps down on the deer and catches it.

The leopard often does that in the daytime, as well as at night. And in the daytime the sun may be shining, and on some nights the moon may be shining. It is then that the spots are useful to the leopard. Can you tell why?

Because when the sun or the moon is shining, a little of the light peeps down between the leaves of the tree and reaches the ground. Have you ever noticed that? If so, you have seen that the light reaches the ground like little bright spots, but that there are little dark spots also—the bright spots being the little patches of light peeping down, and the dark spots being the shadows where the light is shut off by the leaves.

In the same way there are bright patches and dark patches on the bough of the tree, where the light also falls in that manner.

And that is what a leopard's body looks like—bright patches and dark patches. The dark patches are his spots, and the bright patches are the ground color of his skin.