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Show 114 MAMMALIA. spect to fot·m. We can only subdivide them by referl'ing to the difference of size and the length of the hair, characters of but little importance. At the head of the genus we find F. leo, L.; Buff. VIII, i, 11. (The Lion.) Distinguished by its uniform tawny colour, the tuft of hair at the end of the tail, and the flowing mane which clothes the head, neck, and shoulders of the male. Of all beasts of prey, this is the strongest and most courageous. Formerly scattered through the three parts of the old world, it seems at present to be confined to Africa and some of the neighbouring parts of Asia. The head of the Lion is more square than that of the following species. Tigers are large, short haired species, most commonly marked with vivid spots. F. tigris, Buff. VIII, ix. (The Royal Tiger.) As large as the Lion, but the body is longer, and the head rounder; of a lively fawn colour above; a pure white below, irregularly crossed with black stripes; the most cruel of all quadrupeds, and the scourge of the East Indies. Such are his strength and the velocity of his movements, that during the march of armies he has been seen to seize a soldier while on horseback, and bear him to the depths of the forest, without affording a possibility of rescue. F. oni'a, L.; Azzar. pl. i:x.; Fred. Cuv. Mammif. (The Jaguar.) Nearly the size of the Royal Tiger, and almost as dangerous; a lively fawn colour above; the flank longitudinally marked with four rows of ocellated spots, that is, w~th rings more or less complete, having a black point in the middle; white beneath, transversely striped with black. Sometimes individual specimens are found black, whose rings, of a deeper hue, are only perceptible in a particular light. F. pardus, L.; the Pardalis of tho ancients; Cuv. Menag. du Mus. 8vo, I, p. 212. (The Panther.) Fawn coloured above~ white beneath; with six or seven rows of black spots, resembling roses, that is, formed by the assemblage of five or six simple spots on each flank; the tail is the length of the body, minus that of the head. This species is scattered throughout all Africa, the southern parts of Asia, and the Inqian Archipelago. In some of them the ground of the fur is black, with spots of a deeper black-F. melas, Per., but they are not a distinct spe· cies. We have frequently seen black and fawn coloured young ones suckled by the same mother.( 1) {1) Temminck calls this species Felis ltu]Hmlze.~. CARNARIA. 115 F. leopardus, L. (The Leopard.) l<'rom Africa ; similar to the Panther, but has ten rows of smaller spots.( 1) These two species are smaller than the Jaguar. Travellers and furriers designate them indiscriminately by the names of Leopard, Panther, African Tiger, &c.(2) There is a third, peculiar to the distant parts of the East Indies, that is a little lower; tail equal in length to the body and bead; spots smaller and more numerous ; the F. chalybeata, Herm.; Schrcb. CI.(3) F. discolor, L.; Buff. VIII, xix. (The Couguar or Puma.) Red, with small spots of a slightly deeper red which are not easily perceived. From both Americas, where it preys on Sheep, Deer, &c. ( 4) Among the inferior species, we should distinguish the Lynxes, which are remarkable for the pencils of hair which ornament their ears. Four or five different kinds of them are known in commerce by the name of Loups Cerviers, which have long been confounded by naturalists, (Felis lynx, L.) and whose specific limits are even not yet perhaps well ascertained. They all have a very short tail, and a skin more or less spotted. The most beautiful, which are as large as a Wolf-F. cervaria, Temm., come from Asia by the way of Russia, and have a slightly reddish-grey fur, finely ipotted with black. Others from Canada and the north of Sweden-F. borealis, {1) The same naturalist considers our Leopard as a variety of our Panther, and confounds them under his Felis leopa1•dus. (2) Buffon has mistaken the Jaguar, which he took for the Panther of the eastern continent, and has not well distinguished the Panther and the Leopard, and for this reason we cannot positively quote his pl. xi, xii, xiii andxiv of Vol. VUI. (3) It is to this species that Temminck affixes the name of Pantlter, because he thinks Linnreus alluded to it, when speaking of his Felis pardus in the "cauda e/tmgata." There is one thing very certain, and that is, that the Panther, so well known to the ancients, and which was so often produced at the Roman games, could not possibly have been an animal from the extreme parts of oriental Asia. The Once of Buff. IX, pl. xiii, (Felis uncia, Gm.) differs from the Panthers and Leopards by the inequality of the spots, which are more irregularly distributed, and partly crenate or annulated, &c. It appears to be found in Persia. We only ~now it by the figure of lluffon, and that which Mr Hamilton Smith has inserted mthework of Griffith, taken from a specimen that was living in London. (4) That this animal, our common Panther, does not always confine itself to Sheep, &c., is well known, and has lately been proved, January 1830, by an unprovoked attack upon an unfortunate woman in Pennsylvania. The ferocious ~rute seized upon her as she was passing along the road, and killed her in an mstant. See Griff'. part V, p.t4.38. .Om. Ed. |