THE CHEETAH.[59]
The Hunting Leopard, or Cheetah, is the last member of the Cat family, and is distinguished from the foregoing forms of the group by its long legs, the peculiar form of the flesh tooth of the upper jaw, and by the fact that its claws are less perfectly retractile than those of other cats, owing to the excessive length of the elastic ligaments. So much struck have some observers been with the variation of the Cheetah from the ordinary feline type, that it has been namedCynælurus, or Dog-Cat, a very inappropriate name, as the animal is a Cat all over, as any one will see who will take the trouble to look at the specimens in the Zoological Gardens. No Dog has that round face, long tail, and supercilious, almost arrogant, expression.
The Cheetah is about four feet and half long from tip of snout to root of tail. The latter appendage is two feet and a half in length, and the height of the animal at the shoulder two feet and a half to two and three-quarters. The hide is of a bright reddish fawn-colour, and covered with numerous black spots, which are single, and not arrayed in rosettes, as in the Leopard, Jaguar, Ocelot, &c. The appearance of the face is very characteristic, owing to a black stripe which passes down the cheek in a sort of sigmoid curve, from the corner of the eye to the angle of the mouth. The tail has black spots and a black tip. The body is slender and small in the loins like a Greyhound’s.
There are three varieties of this animal. One, the maneless Cheetah, is confined to Africa; another, the maned Cheetah, is found all over South-west Asia, and is distinguished from the first-named variety by its longer hair, and by the presence of a distinct though short mane, which, however, is more like the cheek-tufts (we must not call them whiskers, though they exactly resemble them, as that name is appropriated to the long vibrissæ) of the Tiger or Lynx than the mane of the Lion. The third variety is the woolly Cheetah, which differs so much from the other two, as to be usually separated as a distinct species (Felis lanea). Its hair is woolly, and the spots and face-mark light brown instead of black. The hind legs are unusually short. It is a native of South Africa.
SKULL OF CHEETAH.
SKULL OF CHEETAH.
Mr. Jerdon says, that “this animal was the originalPantherandLeopardusof the ancients, who considered (with the Arabs of the present day in North Africa) that it was a breed between the Lion and the Pard.” Possibly it was this animal to which Jeremiah alluded, when he said, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or theLeopardhis spots?” For, although rare, it is still found in Palestine. Canon Tristram says, “A few still haunt the neighbourhood of Tabor and the hills of Galilee. In Gilead it is more common, and a sheikh there presented me with three skins of the Cheetah, shot by his people.”
It frequents open plains, and hunts by day, in correspondence with which habits it has a circular and not an elliptical pupil to the eye.
CHEETAH.
CHEETAH.
The Cheetah is a half-domesticated animal; we say half-domesticated, because, although it is used regularly in hunting, yet it is never properly tamed, and always has to be, as it were,gulledinto doing its work. The following account of the manner in which it is used in Indian sport is given by Mr. Jerdon[60]:—
“‘On a hunting party,’ says Buchanan Hamilton, ‘the Cheetah is carried on a cart, hooded, and when the game is raised the hood is taken off. The Cheetah then leaps down, sometimes on the opposite side to its prey, and pursues the Antelope. If the latter is near the cart, the Cheetah springs forward with a surpassing velocity, perhaps exceeding that which any other quadruped possesses. This great velocity is not unlike the sudden spring by which the Tiger seizes its prey, but it is often continued for three or four hundred yards. If within this distance the Cheetah does not seize its prey, he stops, but apparently more from anger or disappointment than from fatigue, for his attitude is fierce, and he has been known immediately afterwards to pursue with equal rapidity another Antelope that happened to be passing. If the game is at too great a distance when the Cheetah’s eyesare uncovered, he generally gallops after it, until it approaches so near that he can seize it by a rapid spring. This gallop is as quick as the course of well-mounted horsemen. Sometimes, but rarely, the Cheetah endeavours to approach the game by stealth, and goes round a hill or rock until he can come upon it by surprise. This account of the manner of hunting I collected from the conversation of Sir Arthur Wellesley, who, while commanding officer at Seringapatam, kept five Cheetahs that formerly belonged to Tippoo Sultan.’ Mr. Vigne writes thus:—‘The hunting with Cheetahs has often been described, but it requires strong epithets to give an idea of the creature’s speed. When slipped from the cart, he first walks towards the Antelope with his tail straightened, and slightly raised, the hackle on his shoulder erect, his head depressed, and his eyes intently fixed upon the poor animal, who does not yet perceive him. As the Antelope moves, he does the same, first trotting, then cantering after him; and when the prey starts off, the Cheetah makes a rush, to which (at least I thought so) the speed of a racehorse was, for the moment, much inferior. The Cheetahs that bound or spring upon their prey are not much esteemed, as they are too cunning. The good ones fairly run it down. When we consider that no English Greyhound ever yet, I believe, fairly ran into a doe Antelope, which is faster than the buck, some idea may be formed of the strides and velocity of an animal who usually closes with her immediately, but fortunately cannot draw a second breath, and, consequently, unless he strike the Antelope down at once, is obliged instantly to stop and give up the chase. He then walks about for three or four minutes in a towering passion, after which he again submits to be helped on the cart. He always singles out the biggest buck from the herd, and holds him by the throat until he is disabled, keeping one paw over the horns to prevent injury to himself. The doe he seizes in the same manner, but is careless of the position in which he may hold her.’ The natives assert that (in the wild state) if the ground is not very favourable for his approaching them without being seen, he makes a circuit to the place where he thinks they will pass over, and if there is not grass enough to cover him, he scrapes up the earth all round, and lies flat until they approach so near that by a few bounds he can seize on his prey. Mr. W. Elliott says,‘They are taught always to single out the buck, which is generally the last in the herd. The meer-shikars are unwilling to slip till they get the herd to run across them, when they drive on the cart and unhood the Cheetah.’
“I have only to add to this, on my own testimony, that I have often seen it, when unhooded, at some distance from the Antelope, crouch along the ground and choose any inequality of surface to enable it to get within proper distance of the Antelope. As to Vigne’s idea of its rush being made during one breath, I consider it a native one, and unfounded, and I may say the same of its holding one paw over the horns of the buck. The Cheetah, after felling the Antelope, seizes it by the throat, and when the keeper comes up he cuts its throat and collects some of the blood in the wooden ladle from which it is always fed. This is offered to the Cheetah, who drops his hold, and laps it up eagerly, during which the hood is cleverly slipped on again. My tame Cheetah, when hungry or left alone (for it appeared unhappy when away from the Dogs with no one near it), had a plaintive cry, which Blyth appropriately calls a ‘bleat-like mew.’ Shikaries always assert that if taken as cubs they are useless for training, till they have been taught by their parents how to pull down their prey. This opinion is corroborated, in part at least, by my experiences with the tame one mentioned above.”
Although capable of domestication, the Cheetah is, when roused, anything but a pleasant animal to come across. Two colonists from the Cape of Good Hope happened to meet one while they were out shooting Gazelles, and, unfortunately for themselves, pursued it. “The roughness of the road retarded the animal’s flight, and a ball reached it. It immediately turned upon the hunter who had wounded it, and, leaping upon him, pulled him from his Horse, and a hand-to-hand conflict began between the two adversaries. The other hunter dismounted and hastened to succour his comrade, at the risk of hitting him as well as the animal from which he wished to deliver him. His shot was badly aimed. The noise of the discharge changed the aspect of the combat, for the Cheetah abandoned the man whom he had thrown down, to fling himself with redoubled fury on the new assailant, who had not even time to draw his hunting-knife. The animal seized him by the head, and, without letting go, rolled with him to the bottom of a ravine. It was of no avail that the first man, left alive, but horribly mutilated, dragged himself to the new battle-field; the wounds of his companion were mortal, and he only had the melancholy satisfaction of giving thecoup de grâceto the animal, who was already exhausted by loss of blood.”
It is curious, considering the constant domestication of this animal in India, that it does not breed at all readily in confinement. In fact, Mr. Bartlett, who probably knows more about the matter than any one, says that it has never to his knowledge bred in England; but Dr. Günther affirms that it has bred in the Gardens in Frankfort.
The young animal is covered with soft brown hair, without spots, a curious fact, quite reversing the usual order of things, for, as we have seen, the young of the Lion, Puma, and other one-coloured Cats, are distinctly spotted. The black mark on the cheek appears first, and then the body spots. Mr. Jerdon gives an interesting account of a Cheetah kitten belonging to him:—
“I brought up the young one above alluded to along with some Greyhound pups, and they soon became excellent friends. Even when nearly full-grown it would play with the Dogs (who did not over relish its bounding at them), and was always sportive and frolicsome. It got much attached to me, at once recognising its name (Billy), and it would follow me on horseback like a Dog, every now and then sitting down for a few seconds, and then racing on after me. It was very fond of being noticed, and used to purr just like a Cat. It used to climb on any high object—the stump of a tree, a stack of hay—and from this elevated perch look all round for some moving object. As it grew up, it took first to attacking some Sheep which I had in the compound, but I cured it of this by a few sound horsewhippings; then it would attack Donkeys, and get well kicked by them; and when not half-grown it flew one day at a full-grown tame Nylghau, and mauled its legs very severely before it could be called off. I had some Chikaras (Gazella Bennettii) caught, and let loose before it to train it. The young Cheetah almost always caught them easily, but it wanted address to pull them down, and did not hold them. Occasionally, if the Antelope got too far away, it would give up the chase, but if I then slipped a Greyhound, it would at once follow the Dog and join the chase. It was gradually getting to understand its work better, and had pulled down a well-grown Antelope Fawn, when I parted with it, as I was going on field service.”
Brehm had a Cheetah called “Jack,” which was so tame that his master led him about like aDog, and even took him into a drawing-room full of ladies, by whom, after they had recovered from their fright at seeing a real wild beast enter the room, he allowed himself to be patted and caressed. The same author states that a Cheetah once lived at large in an English seaport, and was the greatest possible favourite with the sailors and other inhabitants.