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Jaguars and Pumas, which you read of in Captain Mayne Reid's books, are cats, and so are the Ocelots or tiger cats. Oh, I saw them at the Zoological Gardens. But no one would bring them over, I should think, except to put them in the Zoo. Not unless they were very foolish. And much stronger and cleverer than the savages of South America.
"Poor little sis! she is dreaming," he muttered half aloud. "Perhaps some horrid dream of jaguars or serpents. I have half a mind to awake her. But, no, she sleeps too soundly; I might disturb them all;" and with these reflections Leon remained upon his seat. Once more his head was beginning to bob, when the voice of Leona again startled him, and he looked up as before.
Anyhow, I can stand it a while longer. Hello! what's that mean?" His attention had been attracted toward a movement in the brush at the nearest point of the forest. It was not thirty feet distant. Could one of those long-bodied muscular jaguars cover that distance in a wild leap? What if without warning he should see a tawny figure flashing through the air, and headed straight for him?
The branch was already creaking, when, to his horror, the foremost of the jaguars appeared in sight on the opposite side! He was not discouraged. Again fell the axe again and again; the jaguar is upon the bank; it has sprung upon the root of the tree! It pauses a moment another blow of the axe the jaguar bounds upon the trunk its claws rattle along the bark it is midway over the chasm!
The last I heard of mother she was exploring the headwaters of the Amazon River, hunting crocodiles and jaguars and natives, and so on. "She was a good old sport, though. She showed that by the way she simmered down about Cousin Egbert's cat before she left. At first, she wanted to lay for it and put a bullet through its cowardly heart.
The jaguars, the ocelots, the crocodiles, the cranes, and the vultures, all prey upon them; and, perhaps, if man were to leave them alone, the result would be, not such a great increase in the number of the turtles, but that the creatures who prey upon them would come in for a larger share. The "carapa," or arrau turtle, is, when full grown, forty or fifty pounds in weight.
On two or three occasions he even believed he saw some rapid ruminants moving off, either elans, deer, or wapiti, but he recognized no trace of ferocious animals such as tigers or jaguars, whose absence, however, was no cause for regret.
Jaguars, ocelots, and opossums slink about in the gloom. The skunk goes leisurely along, holding up his white tail as a danger-flag for none to come within range of his nauseous artillery. Bats and large moths flitter around, whilst all the day-world is at rest and asleep.
More frequently, however, they preferred to encamp in the woods slinging their hammocks between the stems of the trees, and making a fire sometimes, to frighten away the jaguars, which, although seldom seen, were often heard at night.
When we add to this the roar of lions, the shrieking of horses, the trumpeting of elephants, the snarling and snapping of wolves, jaguars, hyenas and a chorus of other cries from the circus bedlam, the roar of steam as it escaped through an open valve in the locomotive, and the shriek of the whistle which blew continually, we can get some idea of the wreck, as the gorgeous splendor of the barbaric show was piled in ruins.
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