. Animals in menageries. Mr. ^V^aterton, in his amusing Wanderuifjs, occa-sionally mentions the jaguar^ as an animal which ratherflies before the face of man, than as being prone to at-tack him. Alluding to one which approached their firewhen encamped on the banks of the Essequibo, oureccentric traveller thus continues : — AFhenever thefire got low, the jaguar came a little nearer ; and whenthe Indian renewed it_, he retired abruptly : sometimeshe would come within twenty yards j and then we hada view of him, sitting on his hind legs like a dog :sometimes he moved slowly to and fro ; and at ot
. Animals in menageries. Mr. ^V^aterton, in his amusing Wanderuifjs, occa-sionally mentions the jaguar^ as an animal which ratherflies before the face of man, than as being prone to at-tack him. Alluding to one which approached their firewhen encamped on the banks of the Essequibo, oureccentric traveller thus continues : — AFhenever thefire got low, the jaguar came a little nearer ; and whenthe Indian renewed it_, he retired abruptly : sometimeshe would come within twenty yards j and then we hada view of him, sitting on his hind legs like a dog :sometimes he moved slowly to and fro ; and at othertimes we could hear him mend his pace, as if im-patient. At last the Indian, not relishing the idea ofhaving such company, set up a most tremendous jaguar bounded off like a racehorse, and returnedno more. It appeared by the print of his feet, nextmorning, that he was a full grown one.* This anecdotesufficiently shows how much less ferocious is the jaguar,when compared to the Asiatic tiger. Leopard, respects the animals differed. Tee Leopard. Felis Leopardus, H. Smith, in Griff. Cue.{Fig. 13.) Although the namesof leopard and pantherhave been long familiarin common language,and have conveyed the? ea of two distinct-pecies, yet it is per-iectly clear that no sci-entific writer of the lastgeneration either de-scribed, or, indeed, ap-peared toknow, in whatt seems that numerous Wanderings in South America, 112 ANIMALS IN MENAGERIES. specimens of what is called the leopard, are in theZoological Gardens, and one has been figured in thebook so entitled; but Mr. Bennett has not made theslightest attempt to investigate the subject., or to throwany light upon this difficult question. In this dilemmawe shall therefore repose on the opinions of majorHamilton Smith, whose long experience and accuracyof observation are well known, and whose authority inthis department of nature deservedly ranks above thatof any other naturalist of this country. The Leopard, as d
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Keywords: ., bookauthorrichmondch, bookcentury1800, booksubjectanimalbehavior
