This Was A Singular Fit Of Playfulness In An Animal Which, Though Not Difficult To Be Tamed In Our Menageries, Nevertheless Shows Itself Always Wild And Ferocious In Its Natural State.

If we admit that, being sure of its prey, it played with the little Indian as our cats play with birds whose wings have been clipped, how shall we explain the patience of a jaguar of large size, which finds itself attacked by a girl?

If the jaguar were not pressed by hunger, why did it approach the children at all? There is something mysterious in the affections and hatreds of animals. We have known lions kill three or four dogs that were put into their den, and instantly caress a fifth, which, less timid, took the king of animals by the mane. These are instincts of which we know not the secret.

We have mentioned that domestic pigs are attacked by the jaguars. There are in these countries, besides the common swine of European race, several species of peccaries, or pigs with lumbar glands, two of which only are known to the naturalists of Europe. The Indians call the little peccary (Dicotiles torquatus, Cuv.), in the Maypure tongue, chacharo; while they give the name of apida to a species of pig which they say has no pouch, is larger, and of a dark brown colour, with the belly and lower jaw white. The chacharo, reared in the houses, becomes tame like our sheep and goats. It reminds us, by the gentleness of its manners, of the curious analogies which anatomists have observed between the peccaries and the ruminating animals.

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