Chapter 3

[E]This tiger was streaked, and had been slain, with four others, in the field, by the Emperor, it weighed 265lbs; but one of them weighed 400; when dissected, one-third of its stomach was full of worms, and yet it could not be said the animal had begun to putrify.Hist. Acad.1669.

Thus the species of the tiger has always been more rare and less diffused than that of the lion. The female, like the lioness, however, produces four or five cubs at a time. She is fierce at all times, but, upon her young being in danger, her fury becomes excessive. She then braves every danger to secure them, and will pursue the plunderers of them with such ferocity, that they are often obliged to drop one to secure the rest; this she takes up and conveys to the nearest cover, and then renews the pursuit, and will follow them to the very gates of towns, or to the ships in which they may have taken refuge; and when she has no longer hopes recovering her young, she expressesher agony by the most dismal howls of despair.

The tiger testifies his anger in the same manner as the lion; he moves the skin of his face, shews his teeth, and roars in a frightful manner; but the tone of his voice is very different; and some travellers have compared it to the hoarse croak of certain large birds; and the ancients expressed it by saying,Tigrides indomitæ raucant, rugiuntque Leones.

The skins of these animals are much esteemed, particularly in China; the Mandarins cover their seats and sedans with them, and also their cushions and pillows in winter. In Europe, though scarce, they are of no great value; those of the panther and leopard being held in much greater estimation. The skin is the only advantage, trifling as it is, which man can derive from this dreadful animal. It has been said that his sweat is poisonous, and that the hair of his whiskers is more dangerous than an envenomed arrow; but the real mischiefs he does when alive are sufficient, without giving imaginary ones to parts of his body when dead; for certain it is, the Indians eat the flesh of the tiger, and that they neither find it disagreeable nor unwholesome, and if the hair of his whiskers, taken in the form of a pill, do destroy,it is that being hard and sharp it produces the same effect in the stomach as a number of small needles would.

THE PANTHER, OUNCE, AND LEOPARD.

IN order to avoid an erroneous use of names, to prevent doubt, and to banish ambiguity, it may be necessary to remark that, in Asia and Africa, there are, beside the tiger, whose history we have just given, three other animals of the same genus, but which not only differ from him, but also from each other. These are the Panther, Ounce and Leopard, which have been confounded together by naturalists, and also with a species of the same kind peculiar to America; but to prevent confusion, we shall, in the present instance, confine ourselves solely to those of the old continent.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 107.Panther

FIG. 108.Caracal

The first of these species is the Panther, (fig. 107) which the Greeks distinguished by the name of Pardalis, the Latins by that of Panthera, and Pardus, and the more modern Latins by Leopardus. The body of this animal, when it has attained its full growth, is five or six feet long, from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the tail, which is above two feet long. Its colour is of a yellow hue, more or less dark on the back and sides, and whitish under the belly; it is marked with black spots which are circular, or in the form of a ring, and in which rings there are generally lesser spots in the centre of the same colour; some of these are oval, others, circular, and are frequently above three inches in diameter; on the face and legs the black spots are single, and on the tail and belly they are irregular.

The second is the Little Panther of Oppian, which the ancients have distinguished by no particular name, but which modern travellers have called Ounce, corrupted from the name of lynx or lunx. To this animal we shall preserve the name of Ounce, because, in fact, it seems to have some affinity to the lynx. It is much less than the panther, its body being only about three feet and a half long, which is nearly the size of the lynx; its hair is longer than that of the panther, as is also its tail, which sometimes measures three feet, although its body is one-third less than that of the panther, whose tail never exceeds two feet and an half. The colour of the ounce is whitish grey upon the back and sides, and still more white underthe belly; the back and sides of the panther are always yellow, but the spots are nearly of the same size and form in them both.

The third species was unknown to the ancients, being peculiar to Senegal, Guinea, and other southern countries which they had not discovered; and which we, following the example of travellers, shall call Leopard a name which has been improperly applied to the panther. The Leopard is larger than the ounce, though considerably smaller than the panther, being only four feet in length, the tail measures from two to two feet and a half. On the back and sides the hair is of a yellow colour, under the belly it is whitish; it has black annular spots like those of the panther and ounce, but smaller and less regularly disposed.

Each of these animals, therefore, forms a different species. Our furriers call the skins of the first species panther skins; those of the second, which we call ounce, African tiger skins; and those of the third, or leopard, very improperly tiger skins.

Oppian knew the panther and ounce, and was the first who observed there were two species of the former, the one large and the other small. Though alike in the form of theirbodies and the disposition of the spots, yet they differed in the length of their tails, which in the small species was longer than in the large ones. The Arabians have named the large panther Nemer, and the small one Phet or Phed; which last seems to be a corruption of Faadh, the present name of this animal in Barbary. “The Faadh,” says Dr. Shaw, in his Travels, “resembles the leopard, (he should have expressed it panther) in having similar spots, in other respects they however differ, for the skin of the faadh is more dark and coarse, and its disposition is also less fierce.” Besides we learn from a passage of Albert, commented on by Gesner, that the phet, or phed of the Arabs, is called in the Italian, and some other European languages Leuaza, or Lonza. It is beyond a doubt then, that the little panther of Oppian, the phet or phed of the Arabians, the faadh of Barbary, and the onza, or ounce of the Europeans, is the same animal; and probably also is the Pard or Pardus of the ancients, and the Panthera of Pliny; since he mentions its hair is white, whereas, as we have observed, that of the great Panther is yellow. It is, besides, highly probable that the little panther was simply called pard or pardus, and that, in process of time, the largepanther obtained the name of leopard, or leopardus, from a notion that it was a mongrel species, which had aggrandized itself by an intermixture with that of the lion. As this could only be an unfounded prejudice, I have preferred the primitive name of panther to the modern compound one of leopard, which last I have applied to another animal that has hitherto been mentioned by equivocal names only. The ounce therefore differs from the panther, in being smaller, having a longer tail, also longer hair, of a whitish grey colour; while the leopard differs from them both, by having a coat of a brilliant yellow, more or less deep, and by the smallness of his spots, which are generally disposed in groups, as if each were formed by three or four united.

Pliny, and several after him, have said, that the coat of the female panther was whiter than that of the male. This may be true of the ounce, but no such difference have we ever observed in the panthers belonging to the menagerie of Versailles, which were designed from life; and if there be any difference between the colour of the male and female it can be neither very permanent nor sensible; in some of the skins we have, indeed, perceived different shades, but which we rather ascribedto the difference of age or climate than of sex.

The animals described and dissected by the Academy of Sciences, under the name of Tigers, and that described by Caius, in Gesner, under the name of Uncia, are of the same species as our leopard; and of this there cannot remain a doubt, after comparing the figure, and the description which we have given, with those of Caius and M. Perrault. The latter, indeed, says, that the animals so dissected and described by the gentlemen of the Academy, under the name of tigers, were not the ounce of Caius; but the only reasons he assigns are, that the ounce is smaller, and has not white on the under part of its body. It may also be observed, that Caius, who does not give the exact dimensions, says, generally it was bigger than the shepherd’s dog, and as thick as the bull-dog, though shorter in its legs; how, therefore, Perrault should assert the ounce of Caius to be smaller than the tigers dissected by the gentlemen of the Academy I am at a loss to conceive, for those animals measured only four feet from the nose to the tail, which is the exact length of the leopard we are now describing. On the whole, then, it appears, that the tigers of the Academy, the ounce of Caius, and our leopard, arethe same animal; and not less true do I conceive it that our panther is the same with the panther of the ancients, notwithstanding the distinctions which have been attempted to be made by Linnæus, Brisson, and other nomenclators, as they perfectly resemble each other in every respect but size, and that may safely be ascribed to confinement and want of exercise. This difference of size at first perplexed me, but after a scrupulous examination of the large skins sold by the furriers with that of our own, I had not the smallest doubt of their being the same animals. The panther I have described, and two other animals of the same species kept at Versailles, were brought from Barbary. The two first were presented to the French King by the Regency of Algiers, and the third was purchased for his Majesty of an Algerine Jew.

It is particularly necessary to observe, that neither of the animals we are now describing can be classed with the pardus of Linnæus, or the leopardus of Brisson, as they are described with having long spots on the belly, which is a characteristic that belongs neither to the panther, ounce, or leopard, and yet the panther of the ancients has it, as well as the pardus of Gesner, and the panthera of Alpinus; but from the researches I have made I am convincedthat these three animals, and perhaps a fourth, which we shall treat of hereafter, and which have not these long spots on the belly, are the only species of this kind to be found in Asia and Africa, and therefore we must hold this character of our nomenclators as fictitious, especially when we recollect, that if any animals have these long spots, either in the old or new continent, they are always upon the neck or back, and never on the belly. We shall merely observe further, that in reading the ancients we must not confound thepantherwith thepanthera, the latter is the animal we have described, but the panther of the scholiasts of Homer and other authors, is a kind of timid wolf, perhaps the jackall, as I shall explain when I come to the history of that animal.

After having dissipated the cloud under which our nomenclators seem to have obscured Nature, and removed every ambiguity, by giving the exact description of the three animals under consideration, we shall now proceed to the peculiarities which relate to them respectively.

Of the panther, which I had an opportunity of examining alive, his appearance was fierce, he had a restless eye, a cruel countenance, precipitatemotions, and a cry similar to that of an enraged dog, but more strong and harsh; his tongue was red and exceedingly rough, his teeth were strong and pointed; his claws sharp and hard; his skin was beautiful, of a yellow hue, interspersed with black spots of an annular form, and his hair short; the upper part of his tail was marked with large black spots, and with black and white ringlets towards the extremity; his size and make was similar to that of a vigorous mastiff, but his legs were not so large.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 103.Leopard

FIG. 104.Ounce

All our travellers confirm the testimonies of the ancients as to the large and small panther, that is, our panther and ounce. It appears that there now exist, as in the days of Oppian, in that part of Africa which extends along the Mediterranean, and in the parts of Asia which were known to the ancients, two species of panthers, the largest of which has been called panther or leopard, and the smaller ounce, by the generality of travellers. By them it is universally allowed that the ounce is easily tamed, that he is trained to the chace and employed for this purpose in Persia, and in several other provinces of Asia; that some ounces are so small as to be carried by a horseman on the crupper, and so mild as to allow themselves to be handled and caressed.[F]The Panther appears to be of a more fierce and stubborn nature; when in the power of man, and in his gentlest moments, he seems rather to be subdued than tamed. Never does he entirely lose the ferocity of his disposition; and in order to train him to the chace, much care and precaution are necessary. When thus employed, he is shut up in a cage and carried in one of the little vehicles of the country; as soon as the game appears, the door is opened, and he springs towards his prey, generally overtaking it in three or four bounds, drags it to the ground and strangles it; but if disappointed of his aim he becomes furious, and will even attack his master, who to prevent this dangerous consequence usually carries with him some pieces of flesh or live animals, as lambs or kids, one of which he puts in his way to appease the fury arising from his disappointment.

[F]A particular account of this practice is related in Tavernier’s Travels; Chardin’s Travels in Persia; Gesner’s Hist. Quad. Pros. Alp. Hist. Egypt. Bernier dans le Mosul, &c.

The species of the ounce (fig. 104) seems to be more numerous, and more diffused than that of the panther; it is very common in Arabia, Barbary, and the southern parts of Asia,Egypt, perhaps, excepted.[G]They are even known in China, where they are distinguished by the name ofhinen-pao.[H]The ounce is employed for the chace, in the hot climates of Asia, because dogs are very rarely to be found unless transported thither, and then they very soon lose not only their voice but their instinct.[I]Besides the panther, ounce, and leopard, have such an antipathy to dogs, that they attack them in preference to all other animals.[J]In Europe our sporting dogs have no enemy but the wolf; but in countries full of tigers, lions, panthers, leopards, and ounces, which are all more strong and cruel than the wolf, to attempt to keep dogs would be in vain. As the scent of the ounce is inferior to that of the dog, he hunts solely by the eye; with such vigour does he bound, that a ditch, or a wall of several feet high, is no impediment to his career; he often climbs trees to watch for his prey, and when near, will suddenly dart upon them; andthis method is also adopted by the panther and leopard.

[G]Maserier affirms that there are neither lions, tigers, nor leopards in Egypt.Descrip. Egypt, Tom. II.

[H]A kind of leopard or panther found in the province of Pekin; it is not so ferocious as the ordinary tigers.Thevenot.

[I]Vide Voyage de Jean Ovington,Tom. I. p. 278.

[J]The leopards, says le Maire, are deadly enemies to dogs, and devour all of them they meet.

The Leopard, (fig. 103) has the same manners and disposition as the panther; but in no part does he appear to have been tamed like the ounce; nor do the Negroes of Senegal and Guinea, where he greatly abounds, ever make use of him in the chace. He is generally larger than the ounce, but smaller than the panther; and his tail, though shorter than that of the ounce, is from two to two feet and a half in length. This leopard of Senegal and Guinea, to which we have particularly appropriated the name ofleopard, is probably the animal which at Congo is called theEngoi; and perhaps also theAntamba[K]of Madagascar. I quote these names, from a persuasion that an acquaintance with the denominations applied to them in the countries which they inhabit would increase our knowledge of animals.

[K]The antamba is a beast as large as a dog; it has a round head, and, in the opinion of the Negroes, resembles the leopard; it devours both men and cattle, and is only to be found in the most unfrequented parts of the island.Flacourt’s Voyage.

The species of the leopard seems to be subject to more varieties than that of the panther and the ounce. I have examined many leopards’ skins which differed fromeach other, not only in the ground colour, but in the shade of the spots which last are always smaller than those of the panther or the ounce. In all leopards’ skins, the spots are nearly of the same size and the same figure, and their chief difference consists in their colour being deeper in some than in others; in being also more or less yellow, consists also the difference in the hair itself; but as all these skins are nearly of the same size, both in the body and tail, it is highly probable they belong to the same species of animals.

The panther, ounce, and leopard, are only found in Africa, and the hottest climates of Asia; they have never been diffused over the northern, nor even the temperate regions. Aristotle speaks of the panther as an animal of Asia and Africa, and expressly says, it does not exist in Europe. It is impossible, therefore, that these animals, which are confined to the torrid zone of the old continent, could ever have passed to the new world by any northern lands; and it will be found, by the description we shall give of the American animals of this kind, that they are a different species, and ought not to be confounded with those of Africa and Asia, as they have been by most of our nomenclators.

These animals, in general, delight in the thickest forests, and often frequent the borders of rivers, and the environs of solitary habitations, where they surprise their prey, and seize equally the tame and wild animals that come there to drink. Men they seldom attack, even though provoked. They easily climb trees in pursuit of wild cats and other animals, which cannot escape them. Though they live solely by prey, and are usually meagre, travellers pretend that their flesh is not unpalatable; the Indians and negroes eat it, but they prefer that of the dog. With respect to their skins, they are all valuable, and make excellent furs. The most beautiful and most costly is that of the leopard, which, when the colours are bright, not unfrequently sells for eight or nine guineas.

THE JAGUAR.

THE jaguar (fig. 105) resembles the ounce in size, and nearly so in the form of the spots upon his skin, and in disposition. He is less ferocious than the panther or the leopard. The ground of his colour, like that of the leopard,is a bright yellow, and not grey like that of the ounce. His tail is shorter than that of either; his hair is longer than the panther’s, but shorter than that of the ounce; it is frizzled when he is young, but smooth when at full growth. I never saw this animal alive, but had one sent me entire and well preserved in spirits, and it is from this subject the figure and description have been drawn; it was taken when very young, and brought up in the house till it was two years old, and then killed for the purpose of being sent to me; it had not therefore acquired its full growth, but it was evident, from a slight inspection, that its full size would hardly have equalled that of an ordinary dog. It is, nevertheless, an animal the most formidable, the most cruel, it is, in a word, the tiger of the new world, where Nature seems to have diminished all the genera of quadrupeds. The Jaguar, like the tiger, lives on prey; but a lighted brand will put him to flight, and if his appetite is satisfied, he so entirely loses all courage and vivacity, that he will fly from a single dog. He discovers no signs of activity or alertness but when pressed with hunger. The savages, by nature cowardly, dread his approach. They pretend he has a particular propensity to destroy them, and that if hemeets with Indians and Europeans asleep together, he will pass the latter and kill the former. The same thing has been said of the leopard, that he prefers black men to white, that he scents them out, and can distinguish them as well by night as by day.

Almost all the authors who have written the History of the New World, mention this animal, some by the name of tiger or leopard, and others under the names given them at Brasil, Mexico, &c. The first who gave a particular description of him were Piso and Marcgrave, who called him jaguara, instead of janouara, his Brasilian name. They also speak of another animal of the same genus, and perhaps of the same species, under the name of jaguarette; but, like those two authors, we have distinguished them from each other, because there is a probability of their being different species; but whether they are really so, or only varieties of the same species, we cannot determine, having never seen but one of the kinds. Piso and Marcgrave say, that the jaguarette differs from the jaguar, by its hair being shorter, more glossy, and of a different colour, being black, interspersed with spots of a still deeper black. But from the similitude in the form of his body, in his manners, and disposition, he may,nevertheless, be only a variety of the same species, especially as, according to the testimony of Piso, the ground colour of the jaguar, as well as that of the spots, vary in different individuals; he says that some are marked with black, and others with red or yellowish spots; and with regard to the difference of colour, that is, of grey, yellow, or black, the same is to be met with in other species of animals, as there are black wolves, black foxes, black squirrels, &c. If such variations are not so common among wild as tame animals, it is because the former are less liable to those accidents which tend to produce them. Their lives being more uniform, their food less various, and their freedom less restrained, their nature must be more permanent, that is, less subject to accidental alterations and changes in colour.

The jaguar is found in Brasil, Paraguay, Tucuman, Guiana, in the country of the Amazons, in Mexico, and in all parts of South America. At Cayenne, however, this animal is more scarce than the cougar, which they denominate red tiger, nor is the jaguar so common now in Brasil, which appears his native country, as it was formerly. A price has been set upon his head, so that many of them have been destroyed, and the others have withdrawn themselves from the coasts to the inland parts of the country. The jaguarette appears to have been always more scarce, or at least to have inhabited those places which were distant from the haunts of men, and the few travellers who mention him appear to have drawn their accounts entirely from Marcgrave and Piso.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 105.Jaguar of New Spain

FIG. 106.Cougar

SUPPLEMENT.

M. Le BRUN had a female Jaguar of New Spain (fig. 105) sent him in the year 1775; it appeared very young, and was much less than the one described in the original work, this measuring one foot eleven inches long, and the former two feet five inches; there was a great resemblance between them, and the differences only such as are common to the varieties of the same species. The ground colour of the one we are now speaking of was a dirty grey intermixed with red: the spots were yellow, bordered with black; its head yellow, and ears black, with a white spot on the external part.

Among a number of excellent remarks made by M. Sonnini de Manoncour, respecting thejaguars of Guiana, he says, “the hair of the young jaguar is not frizzled, as stated by M. de Buffon, but perfectly smooth, and with regard to their only equalling the size of an ordinary dog, I have had the skin of one that measured near five feet from the nose to the tail, which was two feet long; and from the tracks I have seen of these animals I have little doubt of the American tigers being as large as those of Africa, except the royal tiger, the largest animal to which that name is given; for the panther, which M. de Buffon considers the largest, does not exceed five or six feet when full grown, and it is certain that some of these animals exceed those dimensions. When young their colour is a deep yellow, which becomes lighter as they advance in years. He is not by any means an indolent animal; he constantly attacks dogs, commits great devastation among flocks, and in the desarts is even formidable to men. In a journey I made through these forests, we were tormented with one for three successive nights, and yet he avoided all our attempts to destroy him; but finding we kept up large fires, of which they are much afraid, he at last left us with a dismal howling. At Cayenne the natives have an idea that the jaguar would rather destroy themthan the whites, but it is not so with the savages, with whom I have travelled through the desarts, and never found them to have any particular terror; they slept as we did, with their hammocks suspended, making a little fire under them, which often went out before the morning; and, in short, took no particular precautions, where they knew themselves surrounded with those animals. (This, observes M. Buffon, is a strong proof that they are not very dangerous animals to men.) The flesh of the jaguar is not good. All the animals of the new continent fly from him, not being able to withstand his power: the only one capable of making any tolerable resistance is the ant-eater, who, on being attacked, turns on his back, and often preserves himself by the strength of his long claws.”

THE COUGAR.

THE Cougar, (fig. 106) is longer but less thick than the jaguar; he is more agile, more slender, and stands higher on his legs; he has a small head, long tail, and short hair, whichis nearly of one entire colour, namely, a lively red, intermixed with a few blackish tints, particularly on his back. He is neither marked with stripes like the tiger, nor with spots like the panther, ounce, or leopard. His chin, neck, and all the inferior parts of his body are whitish. Though not so strong as the jaguar he is as fierce, and perhaps more cruel. He appears more ravenous, for having once seized his prey, he kills it, and without waiting to tear it to pieces, he continues to eat and suck alternately, until he has gorged his appetite and glutted his blood-thirsty fury.

These animals are common in Guiana. They have been known formerly to swim over from the continent to Cayenne, in order to devour the flocks; insomuch that they were at first considered as the scourge of the colony; but by degrees the settlers lessened their numbers, and by continually hunting them have compelled the remainder to retire far from the cultivated parts of the country. They are found in Brasil, Paraguay, and in the country of the Amazons; and there is reason to believe that the animal, described by some travellers, under the name of the Ocorome, in Peru, is the same as the cougar, as well as that in the country of the Iroquois, which has been consideredas a tiger, though it is neither striped like that animal, nor spotted like the panther.

The cougar, by the lightness of his body, and length of his legs, seems to be more calculated for speed, and climbing of trees, than the jaguar. They are equally indolent and cowardly, when glutted with prey; and they seldom attack men unless they find them asleep. When there is a necessity for passing the night in the woods, the kindling a fire is the only precaution necessary to prevent their approach.[L]They delight in the shades of forests, where they hide themselves in some bushy tree, in order to dart upon such animals as pass by. Though they live only on prey, and drink blood more often than water, yet it is said their flesh is very palatable. Piso says, it is as good as veal; and Charlevoix, and others, have compared it to mutton. I think it is hardly credible that the flesh can be well tasted; and therefore prefer the testimony of Desmarchais, who says, the best thing about this animal is his skin, of which they make horse-cloths, his flesh being generally lean and of a disagreeable flavour.

[L]The Indians on the banks of the Oronoka, in Guiana, light a fire during the night in order to frighten away the tigers who dare not approach the place at long as the fire remains burning.

SUPPLEMENT.

MR. COLINSON mentions another species of cougar, which is found on the mountains of Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and the adjacent provinces, and which, from his account, seems to differ very much from that just described; his legs being shorter, and his body and tail much longer, but in colour, and in the shape of the head, they have a perfect resemblance.

M. de la Borde describes three species of rapacious animals at Cayenne; first, the jaguar, which they call tiger; the second, the cougar, or red tiger; (the former is about the size of a large bull-dog, and the latter much smaller) and the third they call black tiger, which we have termed black cougar. (fig. 102) “Its head, continues M. de la Borde, is somewhat like that of a common cougar; it has long black hair, a long tail, and large whiskers, but is much less than the other. The skin of both thejaguar and cougar are easily penetrated even with the arrows of the Indians. When very hard set for food, they will attack cows and oxen; in this case they spring upon their backs, and having brought them to the ground, they tear them to pieces, first opening their breasts and bellies, to glut themselves with their blood; they then drag pieces of flesh into the wood, covering the remainder with branches of trees, and keeping near to feed upon it, until it begins to putrify, when they touch it no more. They will keep near a flock of wild hogs, for the purpose of seizing the stragglers, but cautiously avoid being surrounded by them. They often seek for prey on the sea-shore, and devour the eggs left there by the turtles: they also make prey of the caïmans, or alligators, lizards, and fishes; to take the former, they use the craft of lying down by the edge of the water, which they strike so as to make sufficient noise to attract his attention, who will come towards the place, and no sooner puts his head above water, than his seducer makes a certain spring at him, kills and drags him to some convenient place where he may devour him at leisure. It is said by the Indians that the jaguar decoys the agouti in the same manner, by counterfeiting his cry. They sometimes eat the leavesand buds of the Indian figs; they are excellent swimmers, and cross the largest rivers. They seldom have more than one young at a time, which they hide in the trunks of hollow trees. They eat their flesh at Cayenne, and, when young, it is as white as that of a rabbit.”

The cougar is easily tamed, and rendered nearly as familiar as domestic animals.

THE LYNX.

THE gentlemen of the Academy of Sciences have given a very accurate description of the Lynx, and have discussed with equal ingenuity and erudition the circumstances and names relative to this animal, which occur in the writings of the ancients. They have shewn that the lynx of Ælian is the same animal which they have dissected and described under the name of Lupus-cervarius, and justly censure those who have taken it for the Thos of Aristotle. This discussion is enriched with observations and reflectionsequally interesting and pertinent; it is a pity, therefore, they had not adopted its real name of lynx, instead of that which is the same that Gaza gave to thethosof Aristotle. Having, like Oppian, intimated that there are two species or races of the lynx, the one large, which chaces the stag and fallow-deer, and the other smaller, which scarcely hunts any thing but the hare, they appear to have confounded the two species together, namely, the spotted lynx, which is commonly found in the northern countries; and the lynx of the Levant or Barbary, whose skin is of an uniform colour. I have seen both these animals alive, and they closely resemble each other in many particulars. They have both long stripes of black hair at the extremities of their ears. This very circumstance, by which Ælian first distinguished the lynx, belongs, in fact, to these animals only, and perhaps it was this which induced the Academy to consider them as the same species. But, independently of the difference of colour and spots upon the hair, it will appear extremely probable that they belong to two distinct species.

Klein says, that the most beautiful lynx belongs to Africa and Asia in general, and to Persia in particular; that he had seen one atDresden, which came from Africa, which was finely spotted, and of a considerable height; that those of Europe, especially from Prussia, and other northern countries are less pleasing to the eye, that their colour is little, if at all, inclined to white, but rather of a reddish hue, with spots confused and huddled together. Without absolutely denying what M. Klein has here advanced, I must declare I could never learn from any other authority that the lynx is an inhabitant of the warm climates of Asia and Africa. Kolbe is the only writer who mentions the lynx as common at the Cape of Good Hope, and as perfectly resembling that of Brandenburg in Germany; but I have discovered so many mistakes in the writings of this author, that I never gave much credit to his testimony, unless when supported by that of others. Now all travellers mention having seen the spotted lynx in the North of Germany, in Lithuania, Muscovy, Siberia, Canada, and other northern regions of both continents; but not one, whose accounts I have read, asserts he met with this animal in the warm climates of Africa or Asia. The lynxes of the Levant, Barbary, Arabia, and other hot climates, are, as I before observed, of one uniform colour, and without spots; they cannot, therefore, bethe same as that mentioned by Klein, which he says was finely spotted, nor that of Kolbe, which, according to his statement, perfectly resembled those of Brandenburgh. It would be difficult to reconcile these testimonies with the information we have from other hands. The lynx is certainly more common in cold than in temperate climates, and is at least very rare in hot ones. He was, indeed, known to the Greeks and Romans; a circumstance which does not, however, infer that he came from Africa, or the southern provinces of Asia. Pliny, on the contrary, says, that the first of them which were seen at Rome, came from Gaul in the time of Pompey. At present there are none in France, except possibly a few in the Alpine and Pyrenean mountains. But the Romans, under the name of Gaul, comprehended several of the northern countries; and, besides, France is not at this time so cold as it was in those times.

The most beautiful skins of the lynx come from Siberia, as belonging to theLoup-cervier, and from Canada, under the name ofchat-cervier, because, like all other animals, they are smaller in the new than in the old world; and are therefore compared to the wolf in Europe, and to the cat in Canada. Whatseems to have deceived M. Klein, and might have deceived even more able writers is, first, that the ancients have said that India furnished lynxes to the god Bacchus; secondly, Pliny has placed the lynx in Ethiopia, and has said their hides and claws were prepared at Carpathos, now Scarpantho or Zerpantho, an island in the Mediterranean, between Rhodes and Candia; thirdly, Gesner has allotted a particular article to the lynx of Asia or Africa, in which there is the following extract of a letter from Baron Balicze. “You have not,” says he to Gesner, “mentioned in your history of animals, the Indian or African lynx. As Pliny has mentioned it, the authority of that great man has induced me to send you a drawing of this animal, that you may include it in your list. This drawing was made at Constantinople. This animal is very different from the lynx of Germany, being much larger, has shorter and rougher hair, &c.” Gesner, without making any reflections on this letter, contents himself with giving the substance of it, and intimating within a parenthesis, that the drawing never came to hand.

To prevent a continuance of these errors, let it be observed, first, that poets and painters have affixed tigers, panthers, and lynxes, to the car of Bacchus, as best pleasedtheir fancies; or rather because all fierce and spotted animals were consecrated to that god; secondly, that it is the wordlynxwhich constitutes the whole of the ambiguity, since by comparing what Pliny says in one[M]passage with two others[N]it is plain that the Ethiopian animal which he calls lynx, is by no means the same as the chaus, or lupus-cervarius, which comes from the northern countries; and that it was from this name being improperly applied that the Baron Balicze was deceived though he considers the Indian lynx as a different animal from the German luchs, or our lynx. This Indian or African lynx, which he has described as larger and more full of spots than our lynx, was in all probability, a kind of panther. However true or erroneous this last conjecture may be, it appears that the lynx, of which we are now treating, is a stranger in the southern countries, and is found only in the northern parts of the new and old continents. Olaus says this animal is common in the forests of the North of Europe; Olearius, in speaking of Muscovy, asserts the same thing; Rosinus Lentilius observes that the lynx is common in Courland and Lithuania, and that those of Cassubia, a province of Pomerania, are verysmall, and not so much spotted as those of Poland and Lithuania; and lastly, Paul Jovius confirms these testimonies by adding, that the finest skins of the lynx come from Siberia, and that there is a great traffic carried on with them at Ustivaga, a town about 600 miles from Moscow.

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