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第9章 终悟剑心

On the whole upper surface of the body of the Jaguar the fur, which is short, close, and smooth, is of a bright yellowish fawn; passing on the throat, belly, and inside of the legs, into a pure white. On this ground the head, limbs, and under surface are covered with full black spots of various sizes; and the rest of the body with roses, either entirely bordered by a black ring or surrounded by several of the smaller black spots arranged in a circular form. The full spots are generally continued upon the greater part of the tail, the tip of which is black, and which is also encircled near its extremity by three or four black rings. So far there is little to distinguish the marking of the Jaguar from that of the Leopard; we come now to the differences observable between them. The spots which occupy the central line of the back in the former are full, narrow, and elongated; and the roses of the sides and haunches, which are considerably larger and proportionally less numerous than in the Leopard, are all or nea

s an elongated, curved, and pointed claw, approaching in some degree to those of the carnivorous quadrupeds. All the rest of their nails are broad and flat like those of the Monkeys. Their posterior extremities are longer than their anterior; and their body and limbs are light, graceful, and well proportioned. The tail, which is of uniform thickness[153] throughout, is longer than the body, and, in common with it, is clothed with long, soft, and woolly hair. The head is long, triangular, and gradually tapering into a slender and pointed muzzle, which, in proportionate length, far exceeds that of any of the Monkeys; the ears are short and rounded; and the whiskers but little developed.

In his natural habits the Civet closely resembles the fox and the less powerful species of cats, subsisting by rapine, and attacking the birds and smaller quadrupeds, which form his principal food, rather by night and by surprise than by open force and in the face of day: reduced to a state of captivity, he becomes moderately tame, but not sufficiently so to allow himself to be handled with impunity. In many parts of Northern Africa large numbers of them are kept for the purpose of obtaining their perfume, which bears a high price and is much esteemed. The individual sketched above is a male of large size, and remarkable for never having deposited any of the perfume, although for more than twelve months an inhabitant of the Menagerie.

Very different were the feelings by which the Roman generals and people were swayed even in their most civilized times and at the height of their unequalled power. Through all the gloss which history has thrown over the character of these masters of the universe there appears a spirit of unreclaimed barbarity which was never entirely shaken off. From the scenes of their distant conquests their pr?tors sent to the metropolis[xii] of the world bears and lions and leopards and tigers; but a love of science had no share in the motives for the gratification of which they were transmitted, and the chief curiosity manifested on such occasions by the people of Rome was to ascertain how speedily hundreds or thousands, as the case might happen, of these ferocious beasts would destroy each other when turned out half-famished into the public amphitheatre, or how long a band of African slaves, of condemned criminals, or of hired gladiators, would be able to maintain the unequal contest against them. The consul or emperor

All these birds were comprehended by Linn?us under the generic name of Strix, but later naturalists have subdivided them into several genera, dependent on the size of the ears and of the ocular discs, on the presence or absence of two remarkable tufts of feathers on the head having somewhat the appearance of horns, and on the covering of the legs and feet. The Virginian Horned Owl is spread over nearly the whole continent of America from north to south. Its plumage is brown above, marked with numerous transverse black stripes, and the feathers of the under surface are of a dirty white, transversely striped with blackish-brown.

The right hand figure represents the Chacma, or Pig-faced Monkey, one of the true Baboons, whose generic characters will be found in the succeeding article. The forehead of this species is remarkably depressed, and the nose much prolonged. Its general colour is dusky, approaching to black. Its body measures from two to three feet in length; but the tail is short, and does not reach the ground when the animal stands upon all fours. It is a native of Africa, and was formerly very troublesome in the neighbourhood of the Cape.

THE PARADOXURUS.

The Monkey which occupies the left hand in the present cut forms part of the same group with the subjects noticed at the end of the preceding article, from which it is distinguished by the peculiar manner in which the hair of the upper part of its head diverges, and, as it were, radiates horizontally, from a central point towards an imaginary circumference, assuming a form not unlike the object to which it is usually compared, the round bonnet of a Chinese. Its forehead is also more flattened, its superciliary crests less developed, and its muzzle[148] considerably lengthened and laterally compressed. The length of its body is from twelve to fifteen inches, and its tail when entire measures quite as much. The forehead, which is strongly wrinkled, is nearly naked, and the whole of the face is entirely destitute of hair. That of the upper parts of the body is of a uniform yellowish gray, the under surface deriving a bluish tinge from the skin, which is but thinly covered. Its native country is the east of Asia.

The engravings have been executed throughout by Messrs. Branston and Wright. Determined on securing the accuracy of the representations, they have in every instance compared the proofs with the animals, and have made corrections where necessary until the resemblance has been rendered perfect. In one case alone has a deviation from the original been indulged in: the tail of the ocelot has been figured of the length usual in the species, instead of the truncated state in which it exists in the specimen; the markings of the animal are, however, as noticed in its article, accurately represented.