THE JAGUARONDI.[34]
This is a curious, long-bodied, short-legged animal (see next page), with a body almost as lithe and lissom as a Weasel’s. Like the Puma’s, its head is small and well shaped, and its tail long; but it is a much smaller animal, not exceeding three feet in length, including the tail. Its colour is a dark grey-brown, “each hair being greyish-black, very dark at the root, and entirely black between the root and the point, which is of a dark-grey hue. This diversity of colour causes the Jaguarondi to appear darker or lighter according to circumstances,” that is, according to whether, being in a placid condition, his hair is lying smooth and flat on the body, or whether, being excited, he erects it.
The Jaguarondi lives in the thick forests of Brazil, Paraguay, and Guiana, where it always prefers the most impenetrable thickets, and is never seen in the open country. It lives upon birds and small Mammals, having a special fondness for fowls, which no amount of training will ever diminish. Even when a domesticated Jaguarondi is chained up in a yard, it will “try a thousand shifts” to entice the fowls into its neighbourhood, and will then suddenly leap on and devour them.