You can always recognize the leopard by its markings. The ground color of the fur is bright yellow, with just a tinge of red in it, becoming lighter on the flanks, and passing into white on the lower surface of the body. The spots are black, and those on the back and sides are always ring-shaped, enclosing a patch of yellow. Sometimes, however, the whole of the fur is black. But even then you can see the spots, which look something like the markings in watered silk.
Somehow, these black leopards always seem far more savage than the others, and those who have them under their care say that it is quite impossible to tame them.
In spite of its smaller size, the leopard is nearly as powerful as the tiger, and in some ways is an even more formidable foe. It is much more active, for instance, and is more easily roused into rage; while it can climb trees like a cat, and spring down upon a passer-by from among the branches. It does not as a rule attack man, and will always seek safety in flight if it can. But if it is brought to bay it will fight furiously, and nothing will check it but a bullet through the heart or the brain.
When it can do so, the leopard always likes to live near the habitations of man, because there are so many opportunities of springing upon a pony, a sheep, or a goat. At night, too, it will rob the hen-roosts, or make its way into the pens where the calves are kept, and carry one of them off before its presence is even suspected. Dogs, too, fall victims to it in great numbers, and now and then it succeeds in pouncing upon an unwary monkey. When it kills an animal it does not leave the carcass lying on the ground as the tiger does, and visit it night after night until it is consumed, but carries parts of its body up into a tree, and hides them in a kind of larder which it has made among the branches.
Those who have hunted it say that the leopard is a far more difficult animal to kill than the tiger. The reason is that it is so much more wary. A tiger, as it creeps through the jungle, will look most carefully in front of it as it moves along, as well as on either side, but it never seems to think of looking up into the branches of a tree above, to see if an enemy is hiding there. So very often the hunter is able to shoot it before it has the least idea that it is in danger. But a leopard is much more cautious, and never comes back to its lair, or to the remains of its kill, without carefully examining the boughs above as well as the bushes below; so that unless the hunter is well concealed the animal is almost sure to discover him and to crawl silently away before he has got the chance of a shot.
The Ounce
This animal looks rather like a leopard with very light-colored fur. But the rosette-like spots are a good deal larger, the fur is very much longer and thicker, and the tail is almost as bushy as that of a Persian cat. The reason why the fur is so thick is that the ounce lives in very cold countries. It is found high up in the mountains of Central Asia, ascending during the summer to a height of perhaps eighteen thousand feet—a good deal higher than the summit of Mont Blanc—and coming down to the lower levels in winter. In other words, it is hardly ever seen below the snow-line, and is often known as the snow-leopard. So it wants good thick, warm fur. We do not know very much about its habits, for it is a very difficult animal to watch in a state of nature. Very few people ever see it. But it seems to prey chiefly upon wild goats, wild sheep, and those odd little burrowing animals that we call marmots, and also upon domesticated sheep and cattle which are sent up to graze on the higher slopes of the mountains. It is said never to venture to attack man.
The Jaguar
Still more like a leopard is the jaguar, which lives in Central and South America. But you can tell it at once by looking at the rosette-like marks on its body, most of which have either one or two small patches of dark brown fur in the middle. It also has three or four bold black streaks across its breast, which are never seen in the leopard. And its tail is ever so much shorter, the tip scarcely reaching to the ground when the animal is standing upright.
The jaguar is perhaps even a better climber than the leopard, and seems far more at its ease among the branches than on the ground. Indeed, there are some parts of the great swampy forests of Brazil in which the animal is said never to descend to the ground at all, but to spend its whole life in the trees which stand so close side by side that it can easily spring from one to another. You wonder, perhaps, what it feeds upon. Why, upon monkeys, and very active indeed it has to be if it wishes to catch them. But then, when a band of monkeys discover a jaguar, they are never able to resist the temptation of getting as close to him as they dare, and chattering and screaming as loudly as they can, just to annoy him. Isn't that exactly like monkeys? But sometimes they venture a little too close, and then with a sudden spring he seizes the nearest of his impudent tormentors and carries it shrieking away.