pond caymans, the jacare-tinga, form part of their habitual food, and
a big jaguar when hungry will attack and kill large caymans and
crocodiles if he can get them a few yards from the water. On these
marshes the jaguars also followed the peccary herds; it is said that
they always strike the hindmost of a band of the fierce little wild
pigs. Elsewhere they often prey on the tapir. If in timber, however,
the jaguar must kill it at once, for the squat, thick-skinned, wedge-
shaped tapir has no respect for timber, as Colonel Rondon phrased it,
and rushes with such blind, headlong speed through and among branches
and trunks that if not immediately killed it brushes the jaguar off,
the claws leaving long raking scars in the tough hide. Cattle are
often killed. The jaguar will not meddle with a big bull; and is
cautious about attacking a herd accompanied by a bull; but it will at
times, where wild game is scarce, kill every other domestic animal. It
is a thirsty brute, and if it kills far from water will often drag its
victim a long distance toward a pond or stream; Colonel Rondon had
once come across a horse which a jaguar had thus killed and dragged
for over a mile. Jaguars also stalk and kill the deer; in this
neighborhood they seemed to be less habitual deer-hunters than the
cougars; whether this is generally the case I cannot say. They have
been known to pounce on and devour good-sized anacondas.

In this particular neighborhood the ordinary jaguars molested the
cattle and horses hardly at all except now and then to kill calves. It
was only occasionally that under special circumstances some old male
took to cattle-killing. There were plenty of capybaras and deer, and
evidently the big spotted cats preferred the easier prey when it was
available; exactly as in East Africa we found the lions living almost
exclusively on zebra and antelope, and not molesting the buffalo and
domestic cattle, which in other parts of Africa furnish their habitual