Then in a few days an inflammation set in, and the poor leopard died. Some people are so thoughtless!
CHAPTER XV
American Leopard: The Jaguar
Now I shall tell you about an American leopard. He is called the jaguar. He lives mostly in Central America and South America. His favorite country is Brazil, near the Amazon and other rivers that flow into the Amazon.
Some people call the jaguar the American tiger. This is a mistake, because a tiger is striped, not spotted; and the jaguar is spotted, like a leopard. So it is more correct to call the jaguar the American leopard.
He has all the qualities of other leopards that I have already described to you. But his spots are a little larger and not quite so completely round; they are more nearly square, with rounded corners.
All four-footed animals can swim naturally in some fashion, but leopards can swim especially well. And the jaguar, who lives near the Amazon and other rivers, is a champion swimmer. He swims as easily as he climbs trees. So he eats fish as often as he eats monkeys!
Yes, he actually catches a monkey sleeping on the bough of a tree! He climbs up so silently that the monkey does not awake. At least, those monkeys that do not cultivate the keenest sense of hearing, even in their sleep, get eaten by the jaguar. But a jaguar that is clumsy in his movements awakes the sleeping monkey—and then that jaguar has to go without his dinner. So, again, life is like a competition or trial in the jungle, as I have told you in Book I, pages 118-119. Those animals that cultivate their gifts escape their enemies and they get enough to eat. Those that do not cultivate their gifts are either killed by their enemies, or are themselves starved to death.