From Longman's Magazine. ON LEOPARDS.

us say, who has well-nigh reached his threescore years and ten, and has graduated in all the faculties of human relationships; who has taken his share in all the deep wild beast. It has occupied only a

THE leopard is not a very well-known

comparatively small space in the popular literature of natural history. It is only casually mentioned in Frank Buckland's "Curiosities of Natural History." The late Mr. Wood gave a

joys and deeper anxieties which cling about them; who has felt the burden of young lives intrusted to his care, and has stood alone with his dead before the abyss of the Eternal, has never had a thought beyond negative criticism. It seems to me incredible that such an one can have done his day's work, always with a light heart, with no sense of responsibility, no terror of that which may appear when the factitious veil of Isis the thick web of fiction man has woven round Nature -is stripped off. It may be observed, in conclusion, that our very latest school of thought does not appear to look forward with implicit confidence to the future of Progress." Thus Mr. Leslie Ste-imaginary creature with two necks and phen: 1

66

Popular writers are fond of describing Utopias in which man's power over Nature has indefinitely increased, and machinery been employed to hitherto unimaginable results. An imaginative writer might, I fancy, employ himself to equally good purpose in describing a state of things in which some mechanical discoveries should remain, but serve only as a memorial of a distant past, their principles forgotten, their use only known by tradition; in which the power of discovery should have perished, and a steam-engine be the object of superlike a gun in the hands —as a mysterious survival from

stitious reverence of a savage

the days of the ancient demigods. To bring about such a result it would only be necessary so far to emasculate the intellect that men should be reluctant to encounter the labor necessary for extending the borders of science. There are abundant precedents for decay as well as for progress, and regions enough in which authority has succeeded in shifting the impulse to active thought. Why should we regard such an ellipse of intellectual energy as henceforth impossible?

Such warnings coming from our most strenuous thinkers may profitably be laid to heart by those who fancy that manhood suffrage on the one hand, and sixpenny telegrams on the other, mean

the Millennium.

S. OF B.

1 An Agnostic's Apology, and other Essays. By Leslie Stephen. London, 1893.

very meagre account of it in his favorite book. It is probable that there may be some authentic explanation how and why the leopard found such a prominent place in the armorial bearings of England, but I cannot lay hands on it. It is true that national emblems are not always happily selected; as, for instance, the fearful fowl that does duty in America for an eagle; or the

two heads that is found on the standard of Austria as the typical eagle of that country. In England we have set up three leopards on the royal flag, and perhaps the number or quantity is supposed to make up for the quality of the beast. The leopard is, in my opinion, rather a vulgar animal. It is vulgar in two senses. It is very common in many parts of Asia and Africa, and its general habits are low, cowardly, and sneaking. Its redeeming quality is that it has considerable beauty of form and fur. So, for that matter, has almost every one of the cat tribe. During a long residence in India I became tolerably familiar with leopards. I once kept two little cubs about three months old, but when in my inexperience I had them washed with soap and water to get rid of their fleas, they resented the insult and died. I never really liked leopards. Mr. Wood, the naturalist, describes them as creatures of almost inoffensive habits, but enemies to poultry and fatal to fowls. On the other hand, I have recently seen an account in an Indian paper of a leopard that killed in the course of eighteen months more than one hundred and fifty human beings. Such a murderous beast never came within my cognizance, though I fear that the story was true. I will now try to put together a few reminiscences of my own

experiences with leopards for a period | If any one wishes to judge for himextending over twenty years and more self, let him walk down Regent Street in Lower Bengal.

and look at the leopard skins hanging in the fur-shops there. It seems a rather hard saying, but the people who cure and preserve these skins make some of them look more beautiful than when they are on the live animal. Let any one go to the Zoo and look at the living creatures and admire their graceful forms, and the infinite variety of their spotted skins. But they need to have sunshine on them, and sunshine cannot be brought directly to bear on the leopards in the Lion House. On the few summer days on which they can be let out into the large iron

House they look much better, but still the skins are more or less dirty, and they want the gloss that they ought to have. The best living leopard that I ever saw in captivity was in the Zoological Gardens at Marseilles, where a large cave has been so artfully dug out of the hillside that a projecting point of rock stretches out into the sunshine, and the leopards delight to lie on it. As we passed by there was a leopard lying basking in the sun, and his skin was a picture of natural beauty. Any visitor to Marseilles will do well to go and see the Zoo there, if it be only for the sake of the leopards.

The first time that I saw a wild leopard in the jungle might have been easily the last time for my seeing any wild leopards. I was creeping along under the trees on the slope of one of the little hills at Chittagong, just inside the tangled fringe of briars and grasses at the edge of the covert. I was stalking, or rather sneaking, after one of those beautiful pheasants which we used to call the mathoora (Euplocamus Horsfieldi), and listening for its footfall on the dry leaves, for this pheasant rather disregards the precaution of moving silently. Suddenly barred enclosures behind the Lion there was a slight noise of a broken twig on the projecting branch of a tree almost overhead in front of me. A glance showed to me a leopard stretched out along the branch and gazing earnestly into the bushes below it. The leopard was hunting the mathoora after his fashion, hoping to pounce on it from the tree. He was so intent on his work that he seemed not to have heard, or smelt, or seen me. In a moment I raised my gun and fired a charge of No. 5 shot into his head just behind the ear. The leopard fell dead almost at my feet, nearly all the shot having penetrated the brain. But if I had not been so lucky as to see the It may be rather a surprise to learn leopard, and also to kill it dead, it that there are not a few people who might perhaps have jumped down on deny the existence of a leopard. They me and broken my neck, or in its dying call it a panther, and profess not to struggles it might have bitten and know what is meant by a leopard. It mauled me. It was great luck for me, is, however, desirable to consider their but bad luck for the leopard. It was a arguments respectfully. Horace wrote very handsome young beast, apparently the line, "Diversum confusa genus full-grown, though leopards vary so panthera camelo," and to the best of much in size and length that it is not easy to say when one of them has reached maturity. This adventure happened many years ago. I still have the animal's skin, but it looks rather dingy and dirty now.

Some persons are of opinion that the skin of a leopard is one of the most beautiful productions of nature. No two skins are exactly alike in the size and position of the spots, and almost every spot differs slightly from another.

my recollection this is one of the earliest instances in which the animal is mentioned as a panther by a classic writer. But this is not the whole of the case against the leopard. A friend of mine is the fortunate possessor of the large folio entitled "Arca Noe," written in medieval Latin by Dr. Athanasius Kircher and published at Amsterdam A.D. 1675. In this work, Dr. Kircher, who was a very learned man in his time, has given separate pictures

of all the animals that went into the | Archbishop Trench tells us, has lasted ark, and he has also presented to us into modern times. Thus Fuller says, the portraits of the animals that were 'Leopards and mules are properly no not taken into the ark. Amongst these creatures.' In reality, however, the excluded animals he places the leopard, names pard, panther, and leopard have or leopardus. The reason given by him reference to one and the same animal." is this that the leopard is a hybrid I believe that all scientific zoologists animal, a compound of the lion and the are of the same opinion as Dr. Anderpard or panther. On the same princi-son. But in India there are some Enple Noah is said to have excluded the glish sportsmen who still imagine that camelopard, as a hybrid combination of there is a difference between a panther the camel and the pard. Other ani- and a leopard. In Madras and Bommals, such as mules, were not admitted bay the animal is almost invariably for similar reasons; and it seems to called a panther. The Bengal presifollow that Dr. Kircher believed that dency, in its military jurisdiction, is so Noah called the animals in his time by extensive, reaching from the borders their Greek names. It is only fair to of Afghanistan to the eastern limits of add that Noah did not take with him Assam, that it would be unsafe to predwhat are called the amphibious ani-icate that the name panther is not recmals, such as the hippopotamus and ognized in any part of Bengal, but in the crocodile and the otter, who, as the province known as Lower Bengal the showman said, "can't live upon the name leopard is almost invariably land and die in the water." Dr. Kir- used by English sportsmen. It would cher has also supplied the likeness of be of little use to discuss the names the mermaid, for whom there was no applied by the natives of each province admission into the ark. She is decid- to the leopard or panther. According edly, as Horace wrote, mulier formosa to my own experience, the natives superne. Presumably she was looked adopt the name which they think most ou by Noah as a hybrid, a very unde- suitable to the colloquial proficiency of sirable combination of woman and fish. their master. They would sometimes Be this as it may, it apparently did not call it a little tiger and sometimes a much signify to mermaids in general. spotted tiger in speaking to their masDoubtless there have been just as ter; whilst among themselves, owing many mermaids since the Flood as there to their superstitious notions, they were before the Flood. would not venture to talk of the animal by its proper name. Thus I have heard them use the word "jackal” as applicable to both a leopard and a tiger. This superstition is curious, but almost universal. The strict Mahomedans, from their aversion to the unclean animal the hog, do not speak of it as the soor, a name familiar to every Englishman, but they call it the kala harin, or black deer, as a conscience-saving euphemism.

To return to the leopard, Dr. Kircher's theory regarding the animal was undoubtedly in accordance with the general opinion of his time. Dr. John Anderson, one of our best, but not best-known, naturalists, writes thus in a book published by him in 1883 "The felis pardus, like the lion and tiger, was well known to the ancients, who had a curious superstition regard-ing it, that survives more or less to the present day, and gives rise to frequent It is probable that many residents in discussions as to the supposed differ- India, especially in the large towns, ence between the panther or pard, and know little about the habits of leopards. the leopard. It was thought not to be My own acquaintance with them, as actually the same animal as the pan- the subjects of sport, extended over ther or pard, but to be a mongrel or many years. When I was an assistant hybrid between the male pard and the magistrate at Chittagong, of the mature lioness; hence it was called the lion-age of twenty-one, my friend Captain panther or leopardus. This error, as Swatman, who was in charge of the

elephant kheddas, tried hard to intro- | domestic use, in fighting amongst themduce me to a leopard. There were selves or with their neighbors, in dissome little hills covered with bushes putes about land or women, a blow and grass, just behind the cantonments, from one of them on a leopard's head or military lines, where the native or loins would be almost certain to disSepoy regiment dwelt. The neighbor-able or kill the beast. At all events, ing villagers used to turn out their the sepoys killed the leopard, and for cattle to graze on these hills, and from that year an end was put to our small time to time some predatory animal, hunting expeditions with the elephants. either a tiger or a leopard, would kill As a rule, a man does not go out one of the cows or calves. The owner leopard - shooting as he goes snipeof the slain animal would rush off to shooting or tiger-shooting. Usually tell Captain Swatman of his loss, and the news is brought by some excited Swatman immediately ordered out some and affrighted native that a leopard of his elephants, and kindly sent off an has entered his premises, and, after elephant and howdah to my house or killing a child, or a goat, or a fowl, has office to fetch me. If I was in office hid itself in some shed or outhouse. the business of the day was adjourned On such an appeal it is usual to go out to the morrow, and I went off with my to try to kill that leopard. If a comguns to meet Swatman at the edge of panion can be found, it is better for two the jungle on the hills. How hard we men to go together than for one man to used to work in the hot sun to try to go alone with only native followers. find the tiger or the leopard! But our Almost the first case that I remember tactics were not very brilliant, for first to which we were called, we found that we had to find the body of the cow or the leopard was ensconced in a mat and calf, in order to ascertain from its thatch cow-shed, of which the door had wounds whether the assailant had been been closed on him. We rather rashly a tiger or a leopard. Whilst we were opened the door in order to peep in. disturbing the jungle, the leopard (and | There was a rush and a scuffle, as the the marks were usually those of a leop-leopard tore the door open wider and ard) stole away and hid itself in the jumped out to escape. We were lucky ravines between the little hills; or it in not being knocked down or even may be that it went right away to scratched. But the leopard did not thicker cover on the larger hills, about get right away. It foolishly entered half a mile distant. Of course, as we another shed, which was promptly hunted about among the bushes there closed on him, and we had to begin would be frequent false alarms that the again. My companion climbed on to leopard had been seen. One day a the roof with his gun, and an active young mahout, anxious to distinguish native got up with him to tear open a himself for zeal, cried out that he had hole in the thatch of the roof. I stood seen a large red animal that must be a on the ground with a clear space before tiger. It turned out to be an old red me, in case the leopard should turn out cow that had no fear of a leopard, and in my direction. The eager crowd of had not left the jungle. As for myself, natives, who had come, regardless of I am sure that I never saw even the tip danger, was induced to retire to a disof the leopard's tail. But we went out tance, whilst the most nimble of them again and again, almost once a week, in climbed up into trees or on to the roofs the vain hope that our labors would be of the adjacent huts. It takes longer rewarded. At last the end came about to write this than to give an idea of in this way. The sepoys managed one what actually happened. The native morning to cut off the leopard from the who was tearing a hole in the thatch jungle, and to surround it, and attack it of the shed had rashly tried to look with their iron-bound bamboo clubs; in to see where the leopard was. these clubs are very formidable weap-moment the leopard sprang at him, ons, and, though intended chiefly for and its head appeared through the

In a

Baker, once a well-known sportsman in Lower Bengal. He says that he was watching for a tiger one morning, when the animal came out on the other side of the jungle and seized a villager who was squatted down cutting grass. The tiger, having got easy possession of his victim, did not at once proceed to kill or eat the man, but lay upon him as if meditating on the pleasure awaiting it. Its meditations were cut short by a

thatch. My companion put his gun | go the hand and bolted. A somewhat to the beast's head and sent a bullet analogous story is told by Mr. Edward through its brain so that it dropped dead into the hut. But there were loud cries from the native on the roof, for the bullet, after passing through the leopard's skull, had grazed the man's body, so that he was bleeding profusely and crying out that he was killed. He was quickly brought down from the roof of the shed, and his wound was washed, and found to be little more than skin-deep. A present of a few rupees soon comforted bullet from Mr. Baker's rifle, and the him, and he became, not undeservedly, the hero of the day among his fellowvillagers. The carcase of the leopard was slung from a bamboo and brought to our house, and the skin became the property of my companion.

the story was not published by him until many years after the occurrence.

villager was found almost uninjured. Mr. Baker then describes what the villager told him about his sensations and apprehensions when he thought that his life was forfeited, and that only death awaited him, in whatever manLeopards are sometimes very bold ner the tiger might select. But Mr. and inquisitive. One night I was Baker's stories are sometimes a little sleeping on a narrow camp-bed in the embroidered, and there is some reason verandah of a small indigo factory, to believe that in this instance his where we had a select party assembled own imagination supplied most of the for shooting. I awoke suddenly on thoughts of the villager, especially as hearing a sort of sighing, growling noise, and the next moment I could just see by the moonlight the form of a As a rule, it is best to shoot leopards leopard as it climbed on to the verandah on foot, the alternative being to shoot and approached my bed. Fortunately them from a howdah on the back of an I had mosquito curtains, which seemed elephant. There are several reasons a sort of protection, but I shouted and for this. In the first place, when a yelled as loudly as I could, and some of man is on foot, and can post himself the native servants beginning to move, judiciously so as to get a clear shot, the the leopard thought it expedient to leopard is more likely to come out, as depart, and was seen no more. Far it is wanted to come, as soon as the different was the experience of the beaters begin to try to drive it, with tea-planter in Assam, who was visited their sticks and clubs and shouts, in by a tiger under somewhat similar cir- the direction indicated. The leopard cumstances. He was lying asleep on either comes sneaking out, half stophis cot in the verandah of his bunga- ping to listen to the noises behind low, and one of his hands was hanging him, or he may come out at full speed, outside his mosquito curtains. The making his way to another patch of tiger seized him by the hand and liter- bushes. My friend Mr. F. B. Simson, ally pulled him out of bed. He man- by far the best shot and sportsman of aged to alight on his feet, and then he his time in Lower Bengal, has written found himself being led along by the in his book that he used to flatter tiger, from whose jaws he could not himself that he could put a ball pretty release his hand. His feelings must nearly exactly where he liked into a have been very unpleasant. Fortu- leopard at from twenty-five to forty nately an alarm was raised, and an- yards' distance. It was not my good other gentleman, rushing out with a fortune to be able to do anything like loaded gun, fired a couple of shots that. The leopard is not a large aniwhich probably hit the tiger, as it let mal, and its vulnerable parts, especially