Chapter C: B. Brown, speaking of the causes, whatever these may be, which (3)

“On my return to camp, just as I was sitting down to breakfast, some Banjárás [carriers, and probably gypsies] from a place called Déckná--about a mile and a half from our camp--came running in to say that one of their companions had been taken out of the middle of their drove of bullocks by the tiger, just as they were starting from their night’s encampment. The elephant had not been unharnessed, and securing some food and a bottle of claret, I was not two minutes in getting under way again. The edge of a low savanna, covered with long grass and intersected by a nálá, was the scene of this last assassination, and a broad trail of crushed-down grass showed where the body had been dragged down to the nálá. No tracking was required. It was all horribly plain, and the trail did not lead quite into the ravine, which had steep sides, but turned and went alongside of it into some very long grass reaching nearly up to the howdah. Here Sarjú Parshád, a large government mukna [tuskless male elephant] I was then riding, kicked violently at the ground and trumpeted, and immediately the long grass began to wave ahead. We pushed on at full speed, stepping as we went over the ghastly half-eaten body of the Banjárá. But the cover was dreadfully thick, and though I caught a glimpse of a yellow object as it jumped down into the nálá, it was not in time to fire. It was some little time before we could get the elephant down the bank and follow the broad plain footsteps of the monster, now evidently going at a swinging trot. He kept on in the nálá for about a mile, and then took to the grass again; but it was not so long here, and we could make out the trail from the howdah. Presently, however, it led into rough, stony ground, and the tracking became more difficult. He was evidently full of go, and would carry us far; so I sent back for more trackers, and orders to send a small tent across to a hamlet on the banks of the Ganjál, towards which he seemed to be making. All that day we followed the trail through an exceedingly difficult country, patiently working out print by print, but without having been gratified by a sight of his brindled hide. Several of the local shikáris were admirable trackers, and we carried the line down to within about a mile of the river, where a dense, thorny cover began, through which no one could follow a tiger.

“We slept that night at the little village, and early next morning made a long cast ahead, proceeding at once to the river, where we soon hit upon the track leading straight down its sandy bed. There were some strong covers reported in the river-bed some miles ahead, near the large village of Bhádúgaon, so I sent back to order the tent over there. The track was crossed in this river by several others, but was easily distinguished from all by its superior size. It had also a peculiar drag of the toe of one hind foot, which the people knew and attributed to a wound he had received some months before from a shikári’s matchlock. There was thus no doubt that we were behind the man-eater; and I determined to follow him while I could hold out, and we could keep the trail. It led right into a very dense cover of jáman and tamarisk in the bed and on the banks of the river, a few miles above Bhádúgaon. Having been hard pushed the previous day, we hoped that he might lie up here; and, indeed, there was no other place he could well go to for water and shade. So we circled round the outside of the cover, and finding no track leading outside, considered him fairly ringed. We then went over to the village for breakfast, intending to return in the heat of the day.

“About eleven o’clock we again faced the scorching hot wind, and made silently for the cover where the man-eater lay. I surrounded it with scouts on trees, and posted a pad-elephant at the only point where he could easily get up the high bank and make off, and then pushed old Sarjú slowly and carefully through the cover. Peafowl rose in numbers from every bush as we advanced, and a few hares and other small animals bolted out at the edges--such thick green covers being the midday resort of all the life in the neighborhood in the hot weather. About its centre the jungle was extremely thick, and the bottom was cut up into a number of parallel water-channels among the strong roots and overhanging branches of the tamarisk.

“Here the elephant paused and began to kick the earth, and to utter the low tremulous sound by which some of these animals denote the close presence of a tiger. We peered all about with beatings of the heart; and at last the mahout, who was lower down on the elephant’s neck, said he saw him lying beneath a thick Jáman bush. We had some stones in the howdah, and I made the Lállá, who was behind me in the back seat, pitch one into the bush. Instantly the tiger started up with a short roar and galloped off through the jungle. I gave him right and left at once, which told loudly; but he went on till he saw the pad-elephant blocking the road he meant to escape by, and then he turned and charged back at me with horrible roars. It was very difficult to see him among the crashing bushes, and he was within twenty yards before I fired again. This dropped him into one of the channels, but he picked himself up, and came on as savagely, though more slowly, than before. I was now in the act of covering him with the large shell rifle, when suddenly Sarjú spun round, and I found myself looking the opposite way, while a worrying sound behind me, and the frantic movements of the elephant, told me I had a fellow-passenger on board I might well have dispensed with. All I could do in the way of holding on barely sufficed to prevent myself and guns from being pitched out; and it was some time before Sarjú, finding he could not kick him off, paused to think what he would do next. I seized that placid interval to lean over behind and put the muzzle of my rifle to the tiger’s head, blowing it into fifty pieces with the large shell.”

In Assam and other parts of Indo-China, and in the interior of Malacca, the natives are treated by tigers much after the same manner as those of India were in the days before modern inventions had modified the views of these brutes upon mankind.

A pit is an effectual device for taking tigers, but most descriptions of the way in which it is arranged are evidently incorrect. Malays, however, procure most of the animals they export by means of pits, which are constructed after the manner of those _oubliettes_ or “dungeons of the forgotten,” where in the good old times captives were placed who had no hope of release.

What is the tiger’s temper? Conventionally, and according to common misapprehension, he is the furious and insatiable savage that Buffon paints--“_sa ferocité n’est comparable à rien_.” He is full of base wickedness and inappeasable cruelty, loves blood and carnage for their own sake, and longs continually to fly at unfortunate creatures with that _tremendæ velocitatis_ of which Pliny speaks.

“What immortal hand or eye,
Framed thy matchless symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies,
Burned that fire within thine eyes?”

writes William Blake, and then he asks, “Did He who made the lamb make thee?” The French naturalist and English poet looked at the subject from the same standpoint. It was not necessarily seen wrongly on that account, but it happened that the view taken by both was an imperfect one. Deeper insight or more profound research would have resolved uncertainty in the one case, and checked extravagance in the other. Had they read the runes of nature aright, the answer to such questionings, the rebuke to such exaggerations, would have been found stamped upon the organization of everything that lives. Physical constitution is never an accident or a mistake; it is at once the consequence of special modes of existence, and the cause of their continuance. Bodily conformation and its correlates in mental structure are to brutes absolutely determinative.

“Most carnivorous of the carnivora,” writes W. N. Lockington (“Riverside Natural History”), “formed to devour, with every offensive weapon specialized to the utmost, the _Felidæ_, whether large or small, are relatively to their size the fiercest, strongest, and most terrible of beasts.” The tiger stands at their head. He must needs appreciate his destructive power and feel the desire to exercise it. Inherited tendencies and the pressure of necessity put his capabilities into action. Their exercise, transmitted traits, and those experiences implied in habit, make him what he is,--audacious, treacherous, wary, cunning, ferocious. These characteristics answer to the anatomical specialties by which his frame is distinguished,--his convoluted and back-reaching forebrain, protective coloring, differentiated and perfectly innervated muscles, his simple digestive tract, formidable armature, and padded feet.

THE PUMA

What is true with regard to the present geographical distribution of the cats, has been true always; throughout their fossil history the greater and more formidable _Felidæ_ have been confined to the Eastern Hemisphere. A number of American species exist, however, ranging from among the smallest and most beautiful forms contained in this family, up to animals that in destructive power, only give place to their great African and Asiatic allies. The puma and jaguar have not filled so large a space in zoölogical literature as the lion and tiger; they have not attracted so much general attention, and are less known. But this is, to a considerable degree, the result of accident. For the most part, those who encountered them were men of a different stamp from the famous hunters whose adventures in Asia and Africa have made the animals of their forests and plains familiar and full of interest to so large a portion of the public in civilized lands.

[_From a photograph by Gambier Bolton. Copyright._]]

It is seldom that the throngs that pass before cages in which wild beasts are confined, contain a spectator who knows how perfect a creature a cat is. As a class these forms are adjusted to their place in nature better than other creatures, and also much better than the human race. Their distinctive characteristics are all strongly marked, and have persisted from a period so incalculably remote, that the _Felidæ_ may in this respect be said to stand by themselves. “We have as yet,” remarks A. R. Wallace (“Geographical Distribution of Animals”), “made little approach towards discovering ‘their origin,’ since the oldest forms yet found are typical and highly specialized representatives of a group which is itself the most specialized of the carnivora.” No one acquainted with the evidence upon which this statement rests is likely to gainsay it, and its meaning is not obscure. The fact carries with it a necessary implication that animals of the species referred to, having followed a definite way of life longer than the rest, are more fit in every way to meet its requirements.

Perhaps the most striking illustration that could be given of the reality of what has been said, is the small difference actually existing between wild and domesticated cats. Domestication is so great and radical a change from the feral state, that the entire constitution of an animal is affected,--mind and body, temper, intelligence, form, color, fertility and physical capacity, are all modified. But it is not thorough enough to do away with the traits engendered in the _Felidæ_, and therefore it happens that after thousands of years, the house cat varies from the wild one so little in important and distinctive characteristics. Cattle and sheep were domesticated before the dispersion of the Aryan tribes; linguistic evidence places that fact beyond question. Cats, however, though introduced into Europe from Asia, as was the case also with the horse, ass, and goat, were no doubt first reclaimed from savage life in Egypt. On the Lower Nile domestic cats were sacred to Pasht, whom the Greeks called Bubastis, and identified with Artemis. She was represented with the head of a cat or lioness, as was Sechet also, a divinity equivalent to the Phœnician Astarte.

These personifications were not meaningless. Bast or Sechet was the patroness of the baser passions and more destructive vices. It was her part, likewise, to torture the condemned in the lower world. Naturalists (Pastophori) belonging to the faculties established at “the hall of the ancients” in Heliopolis, and “the house of Seti” in Thebes, knew much more, and also much less, about zoölogy and its allied sciences than is popularly supposed.

_Felis concolor_, the puma, cougar, panther, mountain lion, etc., is more correctly called by the last of these names than by that of panther, under which he is commonly known throughout the northern part of this continent. In its habits the puma is said, but not with any great degree of appropriateness, to resemble the leopard more closely than any feline species. Buffon called it the American lion, but he knew very little about this animal, and his opinion upon its character is of no special importance. E. F. im Thurn (“Among the Indians of Guiana”) remarks that in the southern part of America, and particularly in Guiana, all varieties of feral cats take their titles from the kind of game upon which they principally subsist. Thus _Felis concolor_ is called “the deer tiger,” _Felis nigra_ the “tapir tiger,” and _Felis macnera_ the “peccary tiger.” Such may be the case when aborigines are forced to particularize; but in common parlance one hears only the sobriquet “_león_” bestowed by all classes of people on the puma.

There is but one true species found in America, and this is distributed in all parts of the continent. The average length from tip to tip may be given at about six and a half feet. In maturity the skin is of a uniform tawny hue on the back and sides, with some deepening of shade in the case of individuals. Cubs are born with dark stripes upon the body, and spots on the neck and shoulders. Garcilasso de la Vega (“Royal Commentaries”) speaking of this beast as the tutelar of certain noble Peruvian families, and probably their eponymous ancestor, says: “A Spaniard whom I knew killed a large lioness (female puma) in the country of the Antis, near Cuzco. She had climbed into a high tree, and was slain by four thrusts of a lance. There were two whelps in her body _which were sons of a tiger_ (jaguar), for their skins were marked with the sire’s spots.”

Like all _Felidæ_ except the cheeta or hunting leopard, the limbs have little free play; they are not adapted to continued rapid locomotion, being short and massive, very powerful, but somewhat limited in variety of action, and more capable of extreme and spasmodic efforts than of persistent use. The animal is very arboreal in its habits, and its climbing powers and general dexterity are not surpassed by any species belonging to this family.

Like true panthers, these cougars, carcajous, catamounts or pumas (the native title is _sassu-arana_ or false deer) are, according to H. W. Bates (“The Naturalist on the River Amazon”), accustomed to live in cliffs and caves, and they seem able to do without the constant supply of water that some others among the _Felidæ_ require.

It is said that here, as in India, the representatives of the tiger and lion do not live together. While this may be true in a general way, there is not the same separateness of range as in Asia; and the author, in common with other explorers, has found them in similar localities on several occasions. No accounts have been given, so far as the present writer is aware, of actual conflicts occurring between the puma and jaguar, and, in fact, there could be little hope for the former in such a contest, as his adversary would be much heavier and more powerful, equally active, and better armed. With respect to the grizzly bear, there is little doubt that common report among frontiersmen, to the effect that he is often assailed by the puma and frequently worsted, has some foundation in fact. From two to four young are born together, and by the end of the first year these whelps lose their spots and stripes. They are lively and playful during infancy, and although in them, as in all animals so highly organized, a decided individuality displays itself from the first, personal experience has convinced the author that they possess a great degree of intelligence, are easily taught those things which their faculties enable them to acquire; and, so far as their own interest and convenience influence conduct, that they exhibit ludicrously strong preferences and dislikes.

Great strength and activity are combined in the puma, its armature is formidable, the brute is habitually silent, stealthy in the highest degree, and full of the so-called treachery of its race. Besides this, it is very enterprising when occasion warrants a display of audacity, as well as extremely ferocious and blood-thirsty. More frequently, perhaps, than any of the great cats, it kills for the mere gratification of its cruel impulses. Dr. Merriman (“Mammals of the Adirondacks”) states that on level ground “a single spring of twenty feet is not uncommon for a cougar,” and Sheppard records the measurement of a distance twice as great when the leap was made downward from a ledge of rock upon a deer.

Padre José de Acosta (“Historia natural y moral de las Indias”) says that neither the puma nor the jaguar “is so fierce as he appears to be in pictures,” though both will kill men. There are, however, many places where the puma has been so cowed by ill success in his attacks upon human beings, that he avoids them as much as possible. Cieza de Leon and Garcilasso de la Vega express themselves to the same effect. Humboldt found whole villages abandoned by their helpless inhabitants in consequence of the ravages of the two great American cats, but Emmanuel Liais (“Climats, Géologie, Faune, etc. du Brésil”) asserts that both “_l’une et d’autre fuient l’homme et les chiens; même un enfant à cheval leur fait peur_.” This is a mere repetition of what has been asserted without qualification, proper inquiry, or adequate experience with the larger _Felidæ_ in Asia and Africa.

There is no need to argue the question whether or not pumas can or will kill men; that has been affirmatively settled by facts. This creature’s personal courage is a different matter. It is only a brute; yet if any one studies what has been said with regard to this trait, it will appear that most denunciations of the animal’s cowardice rest upon circumstances under which it did not conduct itself like a gentleman. A cougar’s padded foot, its short massive limbs, which prevent it from chasing prey, the brute’s great powers of concealing itself, and perfect physical adjustment to sudden and violent attacks, are recapitulated as though they had no necessary connection with its behavior, and were not inseparably associated with corresponding peculiarities of character and habit.

A beast of prey passes the active portion of its existence in projecting or executing acts of violence. Habitual success means life, and failure death. Under such circumstances, under the influence of an experience in which by far the larger part of those enterprises undertaken resulted favorably, a self-confidence, incompatible with cowardice, will ensue.

At the same time there seems to be some general preconception with respect to the character of wild beasts, such as converts every manifestation of prudence into poltroonery. The clash of opinions expressed about all the more imposing animals witnesses to the crude and arbitrary manner in which they have been formed. With respect to this one, not the tiger himself has been the subject of more irreconcilable statements.

Stories of puma hunting and of the animal’s exploits depend, so far as their style is concerned, upon the place where they are told, and the experiences of the narrator. No hunter of large game thinks it anything of a feat to shoot a cougar, yet the author has known these brutes to fight desperately when brought to bay, and in two instances their resistance was sufficiently formidable to cause, in the one case loss of life, and in the other injuries from which men never entirely recovered. Many such examples might be gathered, but they are nevertheless exceptional. A puma is not difficult to kill, and if it is seen in time, a properly armed man must either be very unfortunate or very unfit for the position in which he finds himself, if the result is not favorable. What is said of the panther and leopard, however, by Captain Forsyth (“The Highlands of Central India”) and by Sir Samuel Baker (“Wild Beasts and their Ways”) is peculiarly applicable to this animal: it is almost always met with unexpectedly, and no mortal can say beforehand what it will do. If taken at advantage and by surprise, as commonly happens, a single man would not usually have much chance at close quarters. The writer has, however, known them to be killed with knives, though not without severe injury to the victor.

The average native of tropical America, while fully appreciating how much more dangerous is the beast he calls a tiger, is quite enough impressed with the prowess of its smaller, though sometimes equally ferocious ally, to have his mind saturated with superstitions concerning pumas. Tapuyo or Mameluco guides will sit by a camp fire and talk in a way to put Acuna or Artieda in the background. Almost equally with the jaguar this creature has supernatural and diabolic connections. When its rarely heard cry or scream, as any one may choose to call a sound so difficult to describe and which varies so greatly, floats through the forest, these natives never know whether they hear a prowling cougar, or the voice of that god from whom its race descended. Botos, a demon of woodland lakes, guides the beast to his prey; the basilisk worm Minhocao is somehow connected with it in its designs against human beings, and the deadly man-like Cæpora shrieks in concert with pumas as they roam through the darkness. W. A. Parry (“The Cougar”) says that its cry “can only be likened to a scream of demoniac laughter,” and that the female’s answer to her mate’s call resembles “the wail of a child in terrible pain.”

James Orton and Prince Maximilian of Nieuwied have severally settled it that cougars are all abject cowards. Speaking from personal recollection, the author feels no hesitation in saying that it required great singleness of mind to come to this conclusion, and much dexterity to go where they did and avoid seeing things which might have modified this conclusion.

It does not follow, for reasons which have been explained at length, that because a puma attacks a grizzly bear he must be dangerous to a man; or because numbers of men have undoubtedly been killed in some places, that it should be formidable to human beings everywhere.

“When hungry,” says Theodore Roosevelt (“Hunting Trips of a Ranchman”), “a cougar will attack anything it can master.” Audubon, however, supposes that it never ventures to assail such large animals as cows or steers. William B. Stevenson (“Twenty Years in South America”) tells us how destructive this creature is to horses, and also how the more than half-wild cattle of the pampas form into rings to defend themselves. Captain Flack (“A Hunter’s Experience in the Southern States of America”) relates an incident in which his horse was stalked by a cougar. S. S. Hill (“Travels in Peru and Mexico”) informs us that “this animal always flies at the sight of man.” G. W. Webber (“The Hunter Naturalist”) declares that he “knows hundreds of well-authenticated instances in which the cougar or panther attacked the early hunters--springing suddenly upon them from an ambush.” Many writers affirm that calves, colts, sheep, goats, swine, are the only domestic animals ever preyed upon, and a deer the largest wild creature which is destroyed. But a traveller like Charles Darwin was certain to observe that, although in La Plata “cougars seldom assault cattle or horses, and most rarely man,” living principally on ostriches, deer, bizcacha, etc., in Chile, they killed all those animals they are said never to touch, including man.

Moreover, we read dogmatic assertions to the effect that pumas always leap on their victims from behind, and break their necks by bending back the head. Another authority decides that this is so far from being the case that death commonly arises from dislocation caused by a blow with the paw; still another insists that the vertebræ are not disjointed at all, but bitten through, which is again denied by those who are convinced that cougars invariably kill their prey by cutting the throat. Much the same statements are made about everything the beast does or is said to do, and the conclusion, which one familiar with this kind of literature comes to, is that these conflicting statements are not all false, but in a restricted sense all true. That is to say, the several ways of destruction mentioned are practised as occasion requires or suggests.

One point at least with regard to the puma’s disposition in certain directions is more clearly set forth than has been the case in respect to other beasts of prey, and this is the fact that the creature’s temper has been greatly changed by contact with mankind. The same thing has happened everywhere with all game hunted successfully for a long period; but this fact is ignored, and brutes whose natures are different in some minor traits from what they once were, are discussed as if the special features now exhibited had been always the same.

C. Barrington Brown (“Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana”) relates an incident which occurred while he was exploring the upper courses of the Cutari and Aramatau rivers. “One evening, while returning to camp along the portage path that we were cutting at Wonobobo Falls, I walked faster than the men, and got some two hundred yards in advance of them. As I rose the slope of an uneven piece of ground, I saw a large puma (_Felis concolor_) advancing towards me, along the other side of the rise, with its nose close to the ground. The moment I saw it I stopped, and at the same instant it tossed up its head, and seeing me also, came to a stand. With its body half-crouched, its head erect, and its eyes round and black from the expansion of their pupils in the dusky light, it was at once a noble and appalling sight. I glanced back along our wide path to see if any of the men were coming, as at that moment I felt that it was not well to be alone without some weapon of defence, and I knew that one of them had a gun; but nothing could be seen. As long as I did not move the puma remained motionless also; and thus we stood, some fifteen yards apart, eyeing each other curiously. I had heard that the human voice was potent in scaring most wild beasts, and feeling that the time had arrived for doing something desperate, I waved my arms in the air and shouted loudly. The effect on the animal was electrical; it turned quickly to one side, and in two bounds was lost in the forest.”

Now why did this brute thus behave? The narrative gives not the least explanation of its conduct. Brown thought it was frightened by his gestures, because a few days before he had come upon a jaguar basking on a rock by the river, whose serenity was not at all disturbed by the voices of a boat full of men. But that was merely a guess. Very probably this animal had never seen a man previously, and almost certainly not a white man in civilized costume. There was then the profound impressiveness of absolute strangeness in the sight, and this alone would have been more likely to alarm a human being or intelligent brute than any other cause we know of. Perhaps the puma had just devoured a peccary and was gorged; or possibly its keen senses revealed the approach of Brown’s party, who in fact appeared almost immediately. One may see in a narrative like this, which is a fair specimen of those relations from which most dogmatic conclusions upon the character of wild beasts have been drawn, how arbitrary and unjustifiable they generally are.

Roosevelt states that a slave on his father’s plantation in Florida was passing through a swamp one night, when he was attacked by a puma. The negro was “a man of colossal size and fierce and determined temper.” Moreover, he carried one of the heavy knives that are used in cutting cane. Both parties were killed after a long and desperate struggle, whose traces were plainly impressed upon the spot. But here it appears that a man was assailed, and that the beast continued its attempts to kill him after discovering that he was armed, and persisted in its attack as long as life lasted.

One evening as the author was riding towards a hacienda in Sinaloa, and was about half a league distant from it, a girl rushed to the edge of a thicket and began to scream for help. Galloping up, it appeared she had just discovered the body of her father, killed apparently by a puma, who lay dead beside him. Life was not extinct, however, although he was very badly wounded. He said that while passing, the bellowing of an ox, mingled with the cries of some kind of beast, induced him to make his way to the scene of action. There he found a large lion, as he called it, engaged in a fight with a steer, whom he had injured severely, and who was rapidly losing blood. As soon as the man appeared, the beast left the ox and made at him. There was scant time to roll his _serape_ around his left arm, and draw the long knife which every ranchero wears in the _bota_ on his right leg, before he found himself in deadly conflict.

In these three anecdotes we have a very clear refutation by facts of several points with regard to this brute’s character, which have been generally accepted as settled.

Wariness and an entire absence of all the sentiments that produce recklessness in man, are as distinctly marked characters among the _Felidæ_ as their peculiar dentition or retractile claws; yet the author was informed by Colonel W. H. Harness that last summer (1893) a very large panther, as the animal is called in West Virginia, walked into an extensive logging camp near the town of Davis at midday; traversed one wing of the long building in which the men employed slept, and without making any demonstration of hostility towards those who fled before him, entered their dining-room and helped himself to the meat on the table; after which he quietly passed out of a side door, and was shot from a window. If this beast had been broken down with age or disabled by accident so that it could not hunt, or if the season and weather had been such as to banish game from the vicinity, its conduct might be comprehensible. This happened with an animal in perfect physical condition, and at a season when the mountains were full of game. The brute also must necessarily have connected all the men it knew anything about with death-dealing firearms, and that it then should have walked into a crowd, and lost its life in this act of seemingly idiotic bravado, simply sets at naught everything that is known of the creature’s character and habits.

Pumas, like Asiatic panthers, are easily caught in traps, but independently of this form of incapacity, they are far from being wanting in sagacity. Cougars are most accomplished hunters, and it has been explained how much that means. One of them, for example, will sometimes trail a human being for a day’s journey without finding what it considers to be a suitable opportunity for making an attack.

The best and most intimate acquaintance with the character of a wild beast comes from those associations involved in domestication. When you have brought up an animal and been with it constantly day by day, the chances of finding out what it is like are better than they could be under any other conditions whatever. Prince Maximilian of Nieuwied, states that the puma is “peculiarly susceptible of domestication.” It does not appear, however, that he made any experiments in this direction, and it may be suspected that if he had, certain reasons for modifying his views upon the animal’s character would have suggested themselves during their course. A cougar is a cat, and in virtue of that fact is, as has been said, of all animals the least susceptible of radical change. Sanderson and Barras make a wide distinction between feline species, considered as amenable or refractory to such influences; and nothing is offered in the way of disparagement to their opinions, provided it be admitted that a young tiger may be a much more amiable and interesting infant than a panther cub, and, according to Gérard, a lion whelp attaches all hearts by its good qualities. But there soon comes a time at which traits inherent in them all are developed, and when they become strikingly alike in all their essential characteristics.

The writer bears in affectionate remembrance a pet “panther” who, from earliest life until his complete and splendid maturity, lived with him upon terms of the closest companionship. Every one who seriously studies anecdotes of brute intelligence and character must necessarily distrust them. Their authors always, either directly or by implication, put inference in the place of observation, or they start with a hypothesis, the tendency of which is to assimilate evidence, and often, no doubt unconsciously, fit facts to their own preconceptions. It is hoped that the records of daily observation here made use of for the purpose of sketching traits of character, may not prove to be without some interest and value, and that their fragmentary and incomplete form will witness to the fact that nothing is given which seemed to be either speculative or unauthentic.

One sultry morning as the author sat at ease in his sala, an Indian entered and said he had heard that the Señor delighted in wild beasts, so that having by the help of God, some saints, and several friends, slain the mother of this little lion in the Golden Mountains, he had brought it there as a mark of respect, and would like to have seven Spanish dollars. Here he unrolled his _serape_ and deposited a ball of indistinctly striped and spotted fur upon the floor. In that manner this puma of pumas came into the keeping of his guardian.

The latter impressed with a sense of the responsibilities attaching to the position in which he was placed, at once sprinkled the cub with red wine and called it Gato,--a procedure it resented as if the spirit of Constantine Capronymus himself had entered into its sinful little body. The rage of infancy, however, does not endure, and Gato shortly “serened himself,” to use the idiom of the country, where these things took place. He inspected his new acquaintance, rubbed up against him, had his head scratched with much complacency, and graciously ate as much as he could hold. Thus we made friends, and the compact was ever after kept by both parties, each in his own way.

The panther’s way was a very simple one. It consisted in looking to the being he had come in contact with for everything he wanted, and resolutely refusing to enter into intimate communications with any one else. Nobody who knew him could say that the least feeling of affection ever warmed his heart, but it was plain enough that while he contemned the human race, one man was tolerated, and a distinction made between him and all others. Some individuals he detested at first sight, and resented the slightest approach to familiarity. For the remainder he entertained a quiet contempt; but as for fearing them, nothing was further from his thoughts. So far as that went, it is very doubtful whether he ever felt any real dread of his guardian. Some feeling akin to respect may have existed in his mind. His powers of observation were keen and quick, he saw that this particular person differed in appearance from those about him, acted differently, and was somehow or other not the same as they. If he got into difficulties, and was likely to suffer the consequences of misconduct, hostilities against him ceased when his friend appeared upon the scene; he understood this perfectly, and took refuge with him when danger threatened. As was said, Gato had no affectionate impulses so far as could be certainly known. When he wanted to be stroked, or was hungry, or wished to play, or felt insecure, he came to his guardian, followed him about, and lay beside him. Moreover, the little savage was jealous. If he beheld a dog it always put him in a passion to see it coming towards his master to be caressed. He would fly to get ahead, dance about, jump on his knee, and growl and show his teeth with every sign of anger against the intruder upon his rights.

Colonel Julius Barras (“India and Tiger Hunting”) speaks of the jealousy shown by tiger cubs in his possession, but whereas he was satisfied that this was an expression of tenderness towards himself, the writer thinks it more likely to have been an exhibition of selfishness. Gato manifested at a very early age an appreciation of his own possessions, and a determination to do things after his own fashion. So far from checking this by force, his guardian encouraged it, and after having come to a clear understanding with him on the subject of biting and clawing, left him alone to follow his own devices. He was a very sagacious personage, and there was not a drop of cowardly blood in his whole body. When he was a baby there was little to distinguish him, while at rest, from some domestic cats, but he no sooner began to move about than his free wild air, the unmistakable style of savagery that stamped every action, showed him in another way. It may be added that, being left free to exhibit his individuality, and not having his family and personal characteristics marred or masked by enforced restraint until the creature grew dull, apathetic, and half imbecile, he was as pretty a specimen of feline peculiarity as any one could expect to see. Nothing was clearer to him than that the many-colored rug he was accustomed to lie on was his own. He had favorite places in which to sleep, meditate, and make observations. It would have been disagreeable indeed for any servant about the establishment to take off his bright silver collar after he grew to any size, and when he captured anything and put it away, that article became his private property, and he had no notion of giving it up.

Candor compels the admission that flattering as would have been some tokens of disinterested affection, he never gave any. What he did was to please himself. When he had no desire to be taught, which was often the case, a more stupid, sulky, and unsatisfactory pupil could not be imagined; but when his interest happened to be excited he was quickness itself, and he seldom forgot. One might as well have caressed a stuffed cat, or tried to romp with a dead one, as to have expected any recognition of advances in these directions when Señor Gato felt disposed to contemplation, and if compelled, as of course was the case sometimes, to do anything against his humor, he was not accustomed to leave any doubt about the disgust and anger which possessed him. From first to last, always, and under all circumstances, he like Richard, was “himself alone,” and never stooped to the snobbishness of pretence. Thus it happened that although under fostering care and paternal rule the creature grew in grace continually, he never became fitted to adorn general society. The asperity of his nature easily showed itself; the wild beast broke through the habitual dignity of his demeanor on small provocation. Not even that to him, extraordinary person with whom he was most intimate, and whose resources so powerfully impressed his mind, might pull his ears or twist his tail after he grew up. This was to pass the proper limits of familiarity, and whenever it happened he crouched and glared with glistening fangs. That was all, however; no act of hostility followed.

Gato began to stalk his guardian at an early age, but soon learned that a statue of St. John the Evangelist was not alive, and gave up his practices against the Apostle. He discovered likewise the illusory character of shadows, which at one time were taken to be substantialities, and somehow or other satisfied his mind about his own reflection in a fountain when the wind ruffled its surface. This gave him much concern for a while. Being accustomed to look at himself in a glass, and to stand with his fore-paws on the edge of the basin and see his reflection in still water, what perplexed and excited him was the fact that it sometimes looked as if it moved while he was motionless. Whether he found out about the ripple, nobody knows, but he stopped tearing round the fountain and peering into it to see this thing from different positions.

It was not until he was quite a good-sized animal that the pretence of killing his guardian was given up. As the gravity of age grew upon him, and those engaging pastimes of his childhood gave way before the development of inherent traits, these playful hunts became more rare and finally ceased. Both of us fully understood that this stalking business was nothing but fun. In fact, Gato never fully entered into the spirit of his part or displayed his powers to their greatest advantage, unless he was closely watched. Then, however, his acting was perfect. He got as far off as possible in the long, gallery-like room, fastened his glowing eyes upon the pretended victim, and from first to last showed how complete are the teachings of heredity, both in all that he did and avoided doing. Nothing that could favor his approach was neglected, no mistake was made. The furniture might be differently arranged with design, lights and shadows changed, new places of concealment, from which he could make his mimic attack, constructed; but the animal’s tactics never failed to alter in accordance with these arrangements, and to be the best that circumstances admitted of. There is no doubt that he admired himself greatly, and, so far as it was possible to judge, commendation was very pleasing. He always expected to be complimented and caressed after darting from an ambush which had been reached with much precaution, and he reared up and rubbed his head against his friend, asking for praise as plainly as possible.

This account is not intended to convey any principles of zoöpsychology, but to record special facts relating to an animal whose family the author looks upon as exceptional in respect to their savagery, and who was himself, so far as the closest observation will warrant one in making a sweeping statement about a wild beast, not recognizably different in his characteristics from other members of the race he belonged to, or average individuals of allied species. “_Magnum hereditatis mysterium_” is a truth relating to the _process_ of heredity alone; it has nothing to do with the fact that like produces like, or that traits, from the most generalized to those which are special, are undoubtedly transmitted. Here was a creature developed through immemorial generations into a typical state of body and mind. So far as the result is concerned, it does not make the least difference whether this end was attained in the manner pointed out by Darwin, or Galton, or Weismann. In Gato the whole personality, every faculty and feeling, the functional and structural peculiarities of all his tissues and tissue elements, were stamped with that impress which the entire life of his savage ancestry entailed. On what grounds can it be supposed that such perfectly superficial influences, as were brought to bear upon him while under restraint, produce any radical change? The alteration in demeanor manifested towards one person, and probably effected through that self-interest which, in its general aspect, is exhibited by all the higher animals, did not show that he had been, so to speak, inoculated with civilized sentiments. On the contrary, he gave a flat denial to that opinion every day, and was as essentially a puma, pure and simple, at the hour of his death, as if he had never seen a man.

It would, however, be a singular course of reasoning by which the inference that all pumas were the same was drawn from this statement. Besides the congenital variation that, to conceal our ignorance, we say is involved in the plasticity of life, every organism has certain acquired differences. Life is no more than a state dependent upon continuous adjustments, and it can never exist in an identical degree in separate beings, because neither the conditions themselves, nor the power to fit body or mind to circumstances, is ever the same in different individuals. Evolved structures, functions, and qualities in groups, will be similar; for animals of all kinds must resemble their direct progenitors; but individuality is not extinguished, and as the race rises in capacity, or its members vary from an average, personal traits become salient, and those dissimilarities produced by alterations in the process by which existence is maintained, appear more prominently.

Almost the entire body of emotions which Gato possessed as a beast of prey, as well as his moral and intellectual traits, were beyond the reach of any modifications that could be made artificially. He was morose, cruel, treacherous, and blood-thirsty; but, it does not follow that he was absolutely so, or that, when compared with other pumas, these characteristics of his species were equally pronounced. Observation enables the writer to say that this animal was more intelligent, tractable, responsive, and reliable than any other beast of the same kind with which he ever was brought into close association.

A direct parallel between men, even barbarous men, and brutes will always fail. We do not know enough of the mental organization of either even to apply terms justly; and more than this, the difference between them in developmental states is so great that while the phenomena of both are of the same order, and the language used in describing one is applicable to the other, there are not close enough likenesses between them to make comparisons possible. Those who have attempted to frame psychological schemes, vitiated their work for the most part by a false method, or invalidated the conclusions arrived at, in consequence of preconceptions which biassed the temper in which evidence was examined. Dr. W. L. Lindsay (“Mind in the Lower Animals in Health and Disease”) recognized the relationship between psychical manifestations wherever they took place, yet the influence, as in his case, of this, among many other hypotheses, was almost certain to make itself felt in the manner in which facts were regarded. On the other hand, Professor Prantl (“Reformgedanken zur Logik”) excogitated a metaphysical system for beasts from the standpoint of an assumption that the chasm which separated them from humanity was impassable. He admits their resemblance in essential nature. He agrees that the dissimilarities which they exhibit are results of a difference in evolutionary degree, and then his whole argument goes to show that this is not the case, and that brute mind and human intellect are radically distinct in structure and function. As this analysis of the intelligence in mankind and inferior beings was made without reference to facts, it is not surprising that they should be traversed by these in all directions, and that almost everything which the Professor asserts to be impossible, is well known to naturalists as a matter of actual occurrence.

Gato himself set at naught many of his conclusions. He may not have exhibited either love, gratitude, sense of duty, or that spirit of self-sacrifice which dogs frequently, and other animals sometimes, display, and there was no opportunity for judging of his social instincts; but he certainly possessed the “time sense” that Prantl attributes exclusively to man. His account of periods and seasons was as accurate as possible; he measured intervals and knew when they came to an end. Whether the ability to count beyond three existed, it was impossible to determine. The three copper balls he used to play with were exactly alike, and if one was missing, its absence never failed to be noticed at once. If it occurred to him that it had been taken away intentionally, he got angry or sulky, as the case might be. During one part of his wardship, the periodical absences of his only friend put him out greatly, because, so far as actions revealed the creature’s feelings, they interfered with his comfort. He became dangerous when grown, and occupied a room by himself, from which he was not removed while his guardian was gone. Under ordinary circumstances he was released for several hours every night, and when the time came, if there was any delay, he began to call upon his comrade to let him out, and grew fierce if not attended to. No one ever knew him to take any violent exercise in this apartment, but the gymnastic performances he went through outside were worth seeing. After being confined in solitude a couple of days, which was the length of time his friend generally remained absent, his eagerness to see him back became excessive, according to all reports. He was restless, savage, and sometimes refused to eat on the last evening. The servants said that long before they themselves heard the horse’s tread, it might be known from Gato that his liberator was coming. But he never welcomed him as a dog or horse will do. He was full of exuberant vitality, endowed with an intelligent interest in the strange things around him, which he studied with continued interest, and inspired with an inherited passion for liberty. This always showed itself first. No sooner was the door opened than he darted out, intoxicated with being free, and it was not until nervous tension had been relieved by violent muscular motion, that he bethought himself of other matters.

To sit and watch a man take himself to pieces was pleasing but puzzling. It was evident that boots were part of the body, because his nose told him so. How could they be taken off, and why had these feet their claws behind? A sword and pistol did not perplex his mind, apparently, as much as the foot gear and spurs. The rapier he admired, like all bright objects, but the firearm excited distrust as being, perhaps, capable of going off spontaneously. He knew about revolvers, but placed no confidence in them whatever. Having presided over the strange process of taking off one skin and putting on another, inspected the articles of clothing removed, and assured himself that those assumed had really become part of the incomprehensible being who did these things, he was ready for his own toilet, which was confined to a gentle brushing of the head. This was expected, however, and was suggested if it did not come soon enough. Then he was ready to go to dinner, a pleasing interlude during which his manners were marked with the greatest elegance and discretion. It was not appetite that moved Gato--he had gratified that before; it was the performance itself.