The skins of these animals are much esteemed, particularly in China; the Mandarins cover their seats and sedans with them, and also their cushions and pillows in winter. In Europe, though scarce, they are of no great value; those of the panther and leopard being held in much greater estimation. The skin is the only advantage, trifling as it is, which man can derive from this dreadful animal. It has been said that his sweat is poisonous, and that the hair of his whiskers is more dangerous than an envenomed arrow; but the real mischiefs he does when alive are sufficient, without giving imaginary ones to parts of his body when dead; for certain it is, the Indians eat the flesh of the tiger, and that they neither find it disagreeable nor unwholesome, and if the hair of his whiskers, taken in the form of a pill, do destroy, it is that being hard and sharp it produces the same effect in the stomach as a number of small needles would. THE PANTHER, OUNCE, AND LEOPARD. In order to avoid an erroneous use of names, to prevent doubt, and to banish ambiguity, it may be necessary to remark that, in Asia and Africa, there are, beside the tiger, whose history we have just given, three other animals of the same genus, but which not only differ from him, but also from each other. These are the Panther, Ounce and Leopard, which have been confounded together by naturalists, and also with a species of the same kind peculiar to America; but to prevent confusion, we shall, in the present instance, confine ourselves solely to those of the old continent. _Engraved for Barr's Buffon._ [Illustration: FIG. 107. _Panther_] [Illustration: FIG. 108. _Caracal_] The first of these species is the Panther, (_fig. 107._) which the Greeks distinguished by the name of Pardalis, the Latins by that of Panthera, and Pardus, and the more modern Latins by Leopardus. The body of this animal, when it has attained its full growth, is five or six feet long, from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the tail, which is above two feet long. Its colour is of a yellow hue, more or less dark on the back and sides, and whitish under the belly; it is marked with black spots which are circular, or in the form of a ring, and in which rings there are generally lesser spots in the centre of the same colour; some of these are oval, others, circular, and are frequently above three inches in diameter; on the face and legs the black spots are single, and on the tail and belly they are irregular.