The tiger, of which an anatomical description was made by the Jesuits at China, and communicated by Father Gouie to the Academy of Sciences, seemed to be the true species,[E] as does also that which the Portuguese have distinguished by the name of Royal Tiger. Dellon expressly says, in his Travels, that tigers abound more in Malabar than in any other part of the East Indies; that their species are numerous, but that the largest, which is as big as a horse, and called by the Portuguese the Royal Tiger, is very rare. To all appearance, then, the Royal Tiger is not a different species; he is found in the East Indies only; and, notwithstanding what has been said by Brisson, and others, is an utter stranger at Brasil. I am even inclined to think that the real tiger is peculiar to Asia, and the inland parts of the south of Africa; for though the generality of travellers, who have frequented the African coasts, speak of tigers as very common, yet it is very plain, from their own accounts of them, that they are either leopards, panthers, or ounces. Dr. Shaw says, that the lion and panther hold the first rank at Tunis and Algiers, and that in those parts of Barbary the tiger is an animal unknown. This observation seems founded in truth, for they were Indian, and not African, ambassadors, who presented Augustus, while at Samos, the first tiger the Romans had ever seen; and it was also from the Indies that Heliogabalus procured those tigers, with which, in order to represent the god Bacchus, he proposed that his car should be drawn. [Footnote E: This tiger was streaked, and had been slain, with four others, in the field, by the Emperor, it weighed 265lbs; but one of them weighed 400; when dissected, one-third of its stomach was full of worms, and yet it could not be said the animal had begun to putrify. _Hist. Acad._ 1669.] Thus the species of the tiger has always been more rare and less diffused than that of the lion. The female, like the lioness, however, produces four or five cubs at a time. She is fierce at all times, but, upon her young being in danger, her fury becomes excessive. She then braves every danger to secure them, and will pursue the plunderers of them with such ferocity, that they are often obliged to drop one to secure the rest; this she takes up and conveys to the nearest cover, and then renews the pursuit, and will follow them to the very gates of towns, or to the ships in which they may have taken refuge; and when she has no longer hopes recovering her young, she expresses her agony by the most dismal howls of despair. The tiger testifies his anger in the same manner as the lion; he moves the skin of his face, shews his teeth, and roars in a frightful manner; but the tone of his voice is very different; and some travellers have compared it to the hoarse croak of certain large birds; and the ancients expressed it by saying, _Tigrides indomitæ raucant, rugiuntque Leones_.