Part 11

THE LEOPARD AND PANTHER

Those conflicting opinions we have thus far seen expressed upon the habits and characters of wild beasts, are not replaced by any unanimity upon the part of those who have described leopards and panthers. They have a less voluminous literature than the lion or elephant, but their temper and traits are disputed about in every particular, and even the place they occupy in nature.

The only difference between a panther and a leopard is one of size; or as G. P. Sanderson (“Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India”) expresses it, the distinction is the same as that existing between a “horse and a pony.” Dr. Jerdon (“Mammals of India”) states that they are merely “varieties of Felis pardus,” and if the species-making mania were not so prevalent, one might wonder at men who constantly met with these creatures in Asia and Africa, and yet wrote about them as if they belonged to distinct groups, and had very little in common.

Major H. A. Leveson (“Sport in Many Lands”) thus describes the panther: “This animal frequently measures eight feet in length from its nose to the end of its tail. It has a well-defined, bony ridge along the centre of its skull for the attachment of the muscles of the neck, which is not noticeable in the leopard or cheetah. The skin, which shines like silk, and is of a rich tawny or orange tan above and white underneath, is marked with seven rows of rosettes, each consisting of an assemblage of black spots, in the centre of which the tawny or fulvous ground of the coat shows distinctly through the black. Its extremities are marked with horseshoe-shaped or round black spots. Few animals can surpass the panther in point of beauty, and none in elegance or grace. His every motion is easy and flexible in the highest degree; he bounds among the rocks and woods with an agility truly surprising--now stealing along the ground with the silence of a snake, now crouching with his fore-paws extended and his head laid between them, while his chequered tail twitches impatiently, and his pale, gooseberry eyes glare mischievously upon his unsuspecting victim.” Captain J. H. Baldwin (“Large and Small Game of Bengal”) writes in much the same strain upon the specific differences between these varieties, and he is at a loss to understand how Dr. Jerdon and Mr. Blyth, Captain Hodgson and Sir Walter Elliot, can regard panthers and leopards as of the same species. The difference between their skulls--that of the leopard’s being oval, while the panther’s is round--is, he asserts, “of itself conclusive evidence upon this disputed question;” and besides that, “the two animals altogether differ from one another in size and character.”

Technical discussions have been avoided so far as it was possible to do so, but here it seems necessary to say briefly that head-measurements as a basis for classification, whether among beasts or men, have always failed; also that developed ridges and processes are for the most part merely concomitants of more massive skulls in larger animals whose muscles are of greater size; and that bulk by itself means very little, and varies in most cases very much. Finally, the coat-markings, in their minor details, of all animals whose skins are variegated, constantly differ in the same species. Among Felidæ one scarcely sees two lions with like manes, or two tigers with identical stripes. As for the spotted or rosetted groups, their spots not only vary in members of specific aggregates, but even upon different sides of the same creature’s body.

Lockington (“Riverside Natural History”) states that “the leopard (including both varieties of Felis pardus under this term) is very variable in size and color.” Stanley, Emin Pasha (Dr. Schnitzer), and Hissman speak of those in Somali-land as much larger than any others in Africa, yet it is certain that there is but one true species now extant, and that this includes those forms already spoken of, together with the snow leopard of the Himalayas, the long-furred, ring-marked, bushy-tailed variety of Manchuria and Corea, and the “black tiger” of India and the Malasian Archipelago, which is nothing but a panther with its colors reversed,--a “sport,” as G. A. R. Dawson (“Nilgiri Sporting Reminiscences”) calls it, and which according to him is “of a uniform dull black color, with its spots (of a fulvous tint) showing in particular lights.” Colonel A. C. McMaster proved that these dark cubs had been found in litters having the usual coloration. General Hamilton demonstrated the same thing, and Colonel Pollok (“Natural History Notes”) states that “the black panther, which is very common towards Mergeri and Tavay, is only a lusus naturæ.” He himself “saw a female panther near Shoaydung, with two cubs, one black and one spotted.”

The “snow leopard” is very little known on account of the solitary and inaccessible regions it inhabits. “It is the rarest event,” says Colonel F. Markham (“Shooting in the Himalayas”), “to see one, though it roams about apparently as much by day as by night. Even the shepherds who pass the whole of the summer months, year after year, in the area where it lives, that is to say, above the forests where there is little or no cover ... seldom see one.... It is surprising and unaccountable how it eludes observation.” He describes its ground color as being of a dingy white, with faint yellowish-brown markings, and represents the animal to be considerably smaller than its congeners of the hot country below. Captain Baldwin, however, saw a skin as large as a panther’s. This was “of a light gray color, with irregular black spots. There was a black line running lengthways over the hind quarters, the hair was long on the neck, and the tail was remarkably long, ringed with black, and black at the tip.”

An animal of the same species, and very like this, is confined to the equatorial belt of Africa. It is as rare as the “snow leopard,” and has only been seen once or twice. Andersson (“Lake N’gami”) reports that the “maned leopard” was mistaken by him for a lion. This name is a translation of the native title--N’gulula, and Leslie, who knew more about it than any one else, states that “a cub is gray, light, and furry.... The half-grown one, gray also, but the spots are faintly distinguishable. In the full-grown animal they are perfectly plain, but very dirty and undefined. There is also a peculiar gray hog mane.” W. H. Drummond (“Large Game and Natural History of Southern Africa”) also met with the N’gulula, and he, like Andersson, thought at first that it was a small lion, which it greatly resembled “in shape and color.”

We may now turn from the varieties of Felis pardus and their external characteristics, to an investigation of those traits which have become organized in them during the long course of ages in which they have become specialized, physically and mentally, for a predatory life.

To know what an animal of this kind feeds on, and how it takes its prey, is also to know much about its structure, temper, and disposition. Neither lions nor tigers find the game upon which they subsist in trees, and the latter, therefore, rarely climb, while there is no account of the former having been seen to do so.

With the panther and leopard this is quite different. There are no climbers more expert than these beasts. As the Panama chief said to the explorer Oxenham, “Everything that has blood in it is food”; to these animals many things without blood, or at least without red blood, are food, for they eat the larva of insects, insects themselves, and birds’ eggs; likewise many fowls, from the splendid peacock to a common crow, which, as Sir Samuel Baker remarks, “lives by his wits, and is one of the cleverest birds in creation.” The panther preys on deer more commonly than any other kind of game, although it destroys reptiles, rodents, etc., and wild pigs in great numbers. Perhaps a wild boar, the “grim gray tusker” of Anglo-Indian tales and hunting songs, “laughs at a panther,” as General Shakespear (“Wild Sports of India”) declares. But all the weaker members of his race become victims to this spotted robber’s partiality for pork. Monkeys, too, from the sacred Hanuman down through all secular grades, are eaten with avidity by these animals, and they kill great quantities of them despite their cunning. There is nothing alive of which monkeys are so much afraid.

Both leopards and panthers can endure thirst much better than tigers, and the latter are cave-dwellers to a greater extent than any of the larger Felidæ. They only drink once in twenty-four hours, and always at night. Their retreats lie amid low, arid, rocky hills covered with underbrush, traversed by gullies whose sides have been washed out into recesses by floods, and their rocks worn away into caves by weathering or percolation. They are much more active and energetic than their striped relatives, can better endure fatigue, and are, as a rule, bolder and more enterprising.

It is very far from being a fact, however, that “the habits of leopards are invariably the same”; that is an error into which Sir Samuel Baker was betrayed by the doctrine of instinct, and which has likewise been shared by nearly every other writer upon natural history. There is a certain sameness in the behavior of such creatures, as there is in that of all classes of animals leading similar lives; but this is as much as it is possible to say. In some localities, for example, the panther is strictly nocturnal; in others it appears that he hunts during the day nearly as much as at night. In no instance is he an organic machine. Far from it; this prowling marauder is the fiercest and most adventurous of wild beasts, astute to a degree, capable of using every faculty to its fullest extent, well able to take care of itself, and fatally skilful in compassing the destruction of others; a being in every way qualified to design and execute its projects, to achieve all those ends which courage and cunning enable it to attain, and quite fit to meet the ordinary emergencies that may arise during the perpetration of its acts of rapine and bloodshed.

The panther’s cry--Gérard (“Journal des Chasseurs”) calls it a “scream”--is often heard upon Indian hillsides when darkness begins to obscure the scene. Captain Baldwin describes it as a harsh, measured coughing sound, without much timbre or resonance, rather flat, in fact, and not at all like the roar of that animal it most resembles,--the American jaguar. Like most of the Felidæ, this species commonly gives tongue upon leaving its lair, or, at least, has been frequently reported as doing so. This is not a point of much moment, but it is a matter of considerable importance to the inhabitants of any village that may lie in the neighborhood, whether that ominous voice dies away in the forest, or appears to be approaching their dwellings. When a panther takes to man-eating, Colonel Pollok (“Sport in British Burmah”) and Captain James Forsyth (“The Highlands of Central India”) assert, “he is far worse than a tiger.” Certainly, no records of such desperate ferocity exist in the case of any other creature of the cat kind; no other is reported to have taken like risks or to have succeeded in its fatal enterprises in the face of equal difficulties.

It is to be taken into consideration that a panther very rarely exceeds eight feet from tip to tip, or weighs more than a hundred and seventy pounds. Several writers have said that this animal’s powers of offence are scarcely inferior to those of the tiger; nevertheless, nothing is more certain than the fact that with all its great strength, its exceeding activity, and formidable armature, a panther cannot stand before a tiger for a moment. It cannot overwhelm a man instantly, bite him through the body, or crush his life out with a single blow; and yet, unless like the superstitious people whom this fell beast destroys, we can imagine demons becoming incarnated to scourge humanity, nothing more terrible and deadly than a man-eater of this class can be conceived of. Captain Forsyth thus sketches a famous panther of the Seoni district, which he was in charge of when those scenes alluded to occurred. “This brute killed, incredible as it may seem, nearly a hundred people before he was shot by a shikári. He never ate the bodies, but merely lapped the blood from the throat. His plan was, either to steal into a house at night and strangle some sleeper on his bed, stifling any outcry with his deadly grip, or to climb into the high platforms on which watchers guard their fields from deer, etc., and drag his victim thence. He was not to be balked of his prey, and when driven off from one side of a village, would hasten round to the opposite side, and secure another person in the confusion. A few moments accomplished his murderous work, and such was the devilish cunning he joined to his extraordinary boldness, that all attempts to find and shoot him were for many months unsuccessful. European sportsmen who went out, after hunting him in vain, would often find his tracks close to their tent doors in the morning.”

It is about time that the usual explanation given for this kind of exceptional conduct upon the part of a beast of prey by those writers who think it necessary to allude to their character, otherwise than in general terms, was banished from descriptive natural history. The course of thought upon the natural relations which subsist between men and brutes, seems to run somewhat in this wise. At sometime, somewhere, and somehow, all inferior denizens of this earth were made to appreciate and fear human superiority. That impression was transmitted as an instinct, and is in full force now. When, therefore, a predatory animal does such violence to its nature as to eat a man, the shock, which according to conventional ideas always attends great crime, unhinges its mind. A kind of madness ensues. It becomes wild, and is driven by Furies like an ancient Greek guilty of sacrilege, or early Christians who, as reported by Gregory the Great and many others, had swallowed devils. Instantaneous change of character is the consequence, and the creature henceforth thinks, feels, and conducts itself in a new and terrible manner.

That is about the sum and substance of most statements bearing upon this subject, and there is not the slightest foundation in fact for any of them. This question has been considered in the abstract; but with regard to the panther’s character the truth is that, in the way stated, no respect for mankind is discoverable in his conduct. It is indeed notoriously otherwise; and this is nowhere more clearly shown than in the records of observations made by men who were convinced that all species of wild beasts instinctively feared them. “The Old Shekarry” (Major Leveson) writes (“Hunting-Grounds of the Old World”) to this effect: “Panthers, like all forest creatures ... are afraid of man, never voluntarily intruding upon his presence, and invariably beating a retreat if they can do so unmolested.” Then this authority goes on to tell what he has learned about panthers in the course of an experience rarely equalled for extent and variety. They are “more courageous than the tiger.... The panther often attacks men without provocation.” When one “takes to cattle-lifting or man-eating he is a more terrible scourge than a tiger, insomuch as he is more daring and cunning.” He relates how this timid creature that never voluntarily obtrudes himself upon human presence, fights hunters on all occasions; how the beast broke into his own camps, carried off dogs that were tied to his tent pole, and much more to the same effect.

There is no difficulty in finding exploits of the same kind; Rice, Inglis, Forsyth, Barras, Shakespear, Pollok, Baker, Colonel Walter Campbell, who saw the man riding next him in a party of horsemen, torn out of his saddle, or Colonel Davidson moving with a column of troops around whose encampments the sentinels had to be doubled to prevent panthers from killing them, all tell the same story.

“The tiger is an abject coward,” and so is the lion. Panthers are audacious, but they run away upon instinct, like Falstaff. No qualifications, no reservations, are made, no middle ground is taken, only a series of facts is given, which prove, so far as anything in this connection can be said to be proved, the incorrectness of what was insisted upon in the first place.

The opinion that a wild beast that has tasted human blood is thereby metamorphosed morally, “undergoes a transformation of emotional psychology,” as Professor Romanes expresses it, scarcely deserves a serious refutation. There is not the slightest reason why any such change of character should take place, and of course it does not. But the fact of a wild beast’s taking to man-eating is a sufficient cause for an alteration in habit. What modifies the animal then, however, is not the fact of killing a man, but the discovery of the ease with which he can be destroyed. Under these circumstances the brute simply substitutes one kind of game for another; it becomes used to the feeble attempts at opposition met with, and goes on with its murders. Where the state of affairs is different, where people are ready to combine against such scourges, to anticipate their designs, pursue, circumvent, and slay them, these beasts of prey do not devour men; they keep as far from them as possible.

It is doubtful if it could be shown that panthers are more prone to anthropophagous habits than other brutes, but the evidence is strongly in favor of the fact that they fight human beings more readily. Their ferocity and hardihood are exceptional among the Felidæ.

The panther described by Forsyth set at naught quite a number of favorite theories. His conduct was indeed very different from that which might have been expected if the main features of character common to his family are like those which are said to exist. The relations of cause and effect were not set aside for his benefit, and therefore, instead of being at once prepared to do the things he is known to have accomplished, there must have been some period of preparation. Of all things it is the most improbable that this animal set out on an expedition at haphazard. Perception, foresight, comprehension, judgment, resource, were not suddenly conferred upon him when he arrived at his destination and taken away when he left. He must have added observation and training to his innate qualities. How easily or to what extent this was done we cannot decide; for to imagine that a wild beast could come out of the forest, and instantly become an experienced master of an entirely new set of circumstances and have the ability to take advantage of every opportunity and overcome all opposition, is preposterous; is nothing less than to suppose an effect without a cause. The brute in question gave terribly convincing proofs that it understood the situation in its entirety, and how this could have been the case unless it was known, in what way known without being learned, and how learned without a mind passing through ordinary processes, does not appear.

To isolate the traits of an animal and consider them separately is a mistake. It is to fall into the same error that Stallo and the transcendental school in physics have made with reference to the attributes of matter. These abstractions of the mind are not identical with realities in nature. They cannot be studied by themselves without distorting the subject to be represented. Compared with that of other great cats the panther’s conduct shows that he is braver than the rest. But this is only an empirical conclusion and throws little light upon the animal’s character. We are not in a position, however, to analyze this in such a way as to show the relative development of its traits, or to say how far excess in one direction alters the general disposition.

So far as the brute’s behavior goes, the following narrative will be found to bear upon several points that have been discussed. Colonel Barras (“India and Tiger Hunting”) had pitched his camp in the Murree jungles, and it was crowded with the usual supernumerary attendants, together with elephants, gharry bullocks, horses, and dogs. One night as he and his companions--Messrs. Sandford and Franks--lay upon their camp beds in the deep slumber that follows a hard day’s work, they were awakened by “a furious roaring.” It appears that a panther had come among them, and seized upon a pet dog belonging to the Colonel then tied to his tent pole.

The brute, finding that it was impossible to carry off his prey, became enraged. Everybody turned out, and the panther made off in the midst of the hubbub. But his visit was looked upon as a challenge, and they resolved to postpone any further proceedings against tigers in that vicinity, until this marauder had been hunted. Orders to that effect were issued to the head shikári, and that worthy acted upon them with such success as to report next morning that the trackers had marked him down. “After the usual hot march of three or four miles,” says Colonel Barras, “we came upon the chief shikári, who was speedily to place us face to face with our hidden foe. On arriving at the scene of action, we found that the panther had taken up his quarters on a steep hillside which was much more thickly covered with cactus plant than usual. The top of the hill was flat ... and devoid of cover. The last short rise up this eminence was so steep that a line of beaters had drawn themselves up in tolerable safety all along the crest, prepared to hurl showers of rocks and stones down the declivity, should the panther take an upward course. All of them, however, then maintained an immovable attitude and a profound silence, whilst in a whisper scarcely to be heard, our guide pointed out the exact bush in which the enemy was said to be concealed. We divided the distance around it, and gradually closed in towards the centre of attraction, till not more than five or six yards separated us from the place.... Here we paused in circumspection; no sound struck upon the ear, nor did so much as a leaf quiver a warning to the eye. But though invisible to us, we felt that the animal was aware of our presence, and that its eyes were fixed upon us as it crouched for a spring.”

Still the panther remained quiet, “and whilst the party were discussing various projects, my dog keeper asked permission to ascend the slope of the amphitheatre on which we were standing, so that he might join the line of beaters on the ridge above. Permission was given, but he was strictly enjoined to make a circuit round the tract of bushes, to enter which would have been dangerous. He had not gone many yards, however, when with true native perversity he struck well into the middle of the cover, and stumbled right upon the panther, which to his no small dismay sprang from a bush only a few feet in front of him.... The brute suddenly appeared before us, going at a great rate through the underbrush. As it flashed across a small open space we all took snap shots, none of which took effect, and the animal dashed into a deep ravine and disappeared.” Nothing now remained except to drive the game; that is to say, post the guns at a point where the beast would most probably attempt to break out, and cause the beaters to advance towards it. This was done, the signal given, and “the perfect stillness was instantly replaced by a wild shrieking, the rushing sound of falling rocks, and a waving about of people and herbage as though the whole mountain were about to slide into the valley beneath. No panther could resist such a pressing invitation to move as this was, and our friend accordingly started off at full gallop for other quarters,” which he again reached without being hit, and presently the report came that the game had taken refuge in a dense clump of cactus on top of the hill. While messengers were despatched for rockets to drive it out, the party agreed to take lunch, and the “tiffin basket” was placed on the shady side of that impenetrable cover where the panther lay.

“For a few moments,” continues Colonel Barras, “we sat quite still. Then it occurred to us to try and peep through into the centre of the mass of cactus to see if we could make out the whereabouts of its present occupant.... Not seeing anything, our thoughts reverted naturally to the basket. There it stood, just on the other side of Sandford. I stretched across him to reach it with my right hand, and had just grasped the handle, when a succession of short, savage roars broke upon my ears, mingled with the wild shouts of the natives, who were evidently being chased by the ferocious brute. At this time I felt that my hat would probably do more for me than my gun, so I crushed the former down on my head, seized the latter, and faced the enemy. The panther meanwhile had floored a beater and got him by the arm, but dropping him at once, came at me with lightning bounds. Owing to the beast’s tremendous speed, I could see nothing but a shadowy-looking form, with two large, round, bright eyes fixed upon me with an unmeaning stare as it literally flew towards me. Such was the vision of a moment.... I raised my gun and fired with all the care I could at such short notice, but I missed, and the panther bounded, light as a feather, with its arms around my shoulders. Thus we stood for a few seconds, and I distinctly felt the animal sniffing for my throat. Mechanically I turned my head so as to keep the thick-wadded cape of my helmet in front of the creature’s muzzle; but I could hear and feel plainly the rapid yet cautious efforts it was making to find an opening so as to tear the great vessels that lie in the neck. I had no other weapon but my gun, which was useless while the animal was closely embracing me, so I stood perfectly still, well knowing that Sandford would liberate me if it were possible to do so.... As may be supposed, the panther did not spend much time investigating the nature of a wadded hat-cover, and before my friend could get round, and fire without jeopardizing my life, the beast pounced upon my left elbow, taking a piece out, and then buried its long, sharp fangs in the joint till they met. At the same time I was hurled to the earth with such violence that I knew not how I got there, or what had become of my gun. I was lying on the ground with the panther on top of me, and could feel my elbow joint wobbling in and out as the beast ground its jaws with a movement imperceptible to the bystanders, but which felt to me as if I were being violently shaken all over. Now I listened anxiously for the sound of Sandford’s rifle, which I knew would be heard immediately, and carefully refrained from making the slightest sound or movement, lest his aim should be disturbed. In a few seconds the loud and welcome detonation, which from its proximity almost deafened me, struck upon my ear, and I sat up. I was free, and the panther had gone”--bounded away shot through the body with a heavy rifle ball, into an acacia and karinda thicket, from which it had to be driven by rockets.

“Just as the interior of the thicket became lighted up, and the crackling of the herbage was at its loudest, the animal roused to frenzy, by the overwhelming character of the attack, girded itself up for a last desperate effort.... It rushed from its now untenable hiding-place, swift and straight as an arrow upon Sandford and myself. He fired both barrels at the beast without stopping it in the least.” The Colonel, whose wounded arm had been bound up, now carried a hog spear. “We had only time,” he says, “to open out one pace from each other, and the momentum with which the animal was coming, almost carried it past us. As it brushed my right leg, however, I saw it twist its supple neck, and literally stop itself by clasping Sandford’s thigh in its extended jaws, bearing him to the ground, where they lay for a moment in a close embrace. I at once adjusted my spear behind the animal’s shoulder, and with a steady thrust drove it straight through the heart. Franks fired at the same instant, and it would be difficult to say which of us caused the panther to give up his last breath. It was dead though, yet it still retained the position it had in life, and its teeth were so firmly locked in the flesh of its foe, that I could not open the jaws with one hand--they felt like iron to the touch.”