Felis Onca. Linn.

It can scarcely fail to have been remarked by those who have perused the preceding pages with moderate attention that the species of cats described in them, including the largest and most formidable of the whole genus, are exclusively natives of the Old World, and confined to the hot and burning climates of Southern Asia and of Africa. A second and more numerous class, of which, however, no example exists at present in the Tower Menagerie, and which, consequently, it does not fall within our province to illustrate, occupy the colder and northern regions of both hemispheres. These belong principally to the same subdivision with the Lynx[42] (being, like him, distinguished by the pencils of long hairs which surmount their ears), and to that which comprehends the domestic cat; and are all of diminutive size and trifling power when compared with those monstrous productions of the torrid zone, the Lion, the Tiger, and the Leopard. The reader is not, however, to imagine that the smaller species exist only in the vicinity of the pole and in the temperate regions of the earth: he will find, on the contrary, that many of them are natives of more southern climes, and commit their petty ravages under as fierce a sun as that which fires their more dreaded competitors in the career of rapine and of blood. Of one of these, the true Lynx of antiquity, we shall have occasion to treat in a subsequent article.

But there is also a third class which springs into existence in the warmer climates of America, some of whose representatives almost equal the Tiger in magnitude, in vigour, and in ferocity, while others rival the Leopard in the beauty and sleekness of their fur, and in the agility and gracefulness of their motions. Foremost of these, and holding the highest rank among the most formidable animals of the New World, stands the Jaguar, or, as he is sometimes called, the American Tiger. Superior to the Leopard in size as well as in strength, he approaches very nearly in both respects to the Lionesses of the smaller breeds: he is, however, less elevated on his legs, and heavier and more clumsy in all his proportions. His head is larger and rounder than that of the Leopard; and his tail is considerably shorter in proportion, being only of sufficient length to allow of its touching the ground when the animal is standing, while that of the Leopard, as we have before observed, is very[43] nearly as long as his whole body. This disproportion between the length of their tails affords perhaps the most striking distinction between the two animals, offering, as it does, a constant and never-failing criterion; whereas the difference in the marking of their furs, although sufficiently obvious on a close examination, depends almost entirely on such minute particularities as would probably escape the notice of a superficial observer, and were in fact for a long time so completely neglected, even by zoologists, that it is only within a few years that we have been again taught accurately to distinguish between them. These particularities we shall now proceed to point out.

On the whole upper surface of the body of the Jaguar the fur, which is short, close, and smooth, is of a bright yellowish fawn; passing on the throat, belly, and inside of the legs, into a pure white. On this ground the head, limbs, and under surface are covered with full black spots of various sizes; and the rest of the body with roses, either entirely bordered by a black ring or surrounded by several of the smaller black spots arranged in a circular form. The full spots are generally continued upon the greater part of the tail, the tip of which is black, and which is also encircled near its extremity by three or four black rings. So far there is little to distinguish the marking of the Jaguar from that of the Leopard; we come now to the differences observable between them. The spots which occupy the central line of the back in the former are full, narrow, and elongated; and the roses of the sides and haunches, which are considerably larger and proportionally less numerous than in the Leopard, are all or nearly all marked with one or[44] sometimes two black dots or spots of smaller size towards their centre: an apparently trifling, but constant and very remarkable distinction, which exists in no other species. By this peculiarity alone the Jaguar may at once be recognised; and this external characteristic, together with the extreme shortness of his tail, his much greater size, his comparatively clumsy form, and the heaviness of all his motions, not to speak of the peculiarity of his voice, which has the sharp and harsh sound of an imperfect bark, are unquestionably fully sufficient to sanction his separation from a race of animals, from which, however much he may resemble them in general characters, he differs in so many and such essential particulars. That this separation has been made more complete by the hand of Nature herself, who has interposed the wide ocean between him and those of his fellows with whom alone there is any probability of his being confounded, is an additional proof, if any confirmation were wanting, of the soundness of the distinction which has been drawn between them.

It is in the swampy forests of South America that the Jaguar commits his destructive ravages, which are spread over nearly the whole of that continent from Paraguay almost to the Isthmus of Darien. It has frequently been said that he is also to be found in Mexico; but this appears to be a mistake, originating probably in Buffon’s having confounded the Jaguar with the Ocelot, describing and figuring the latter under the name of the former, and intermingling with his description many of the peculiar traits of the real Jaguar derived from the relations of travellers. On the other hand he has erroneously figured the latter animal under the name of the Panther; a[45] mistake in which he has been followed by Pennant and others, and with which the writings of zoologists are more or less infected even up to the present day. What the Panther of the ancients actually............