But to return. The row of elevated seats provided for visitors to the Lion-house, and facing the long line of fourteen cages, affords an excellent view of the inhabitants of the different dens. On the left we see two fine male lions in separate cages; and close to them several lionesses, one with a pair of handsome cubs. To the extreme right are three tigers—two from continental India; and a third, a young, very quiet, and peculiarly dark fulvous-marked animal, recently obtained from Turkestan. It must be confessed, however, as every old Indian shikary will testify, that no one of the three before us conveys a true idea of the enormous size, strength, and muscular power which the royal tiger attains to in a wild state. It would be no exaggeration to say, that a well-fed specimen from the Bengal Sunderbunds or Central India would reach nearly twice the weight, and measure twice the thickness round the shoulders, of any one of the three narrow-chested, hollow-flanked creatures before us. Next in importance and size comes the jaguar from America—a single specimen, but a remarkably fine, powerful animal, and, to all appearance, quite a match for any one of the three undersized tigers from the Old World. The puma or cougar of South America—a pair of beautiful grayish-red cats, but wanting in the brawny limbs and muscular neck and chest of the jaguar. Three beautiful leopards in one den. Many good naturalists would pronounce one of them to be a panther, and a distinct variety from the remaining two; but this is an undecided point among zoologists, so we will not touch upon it, merely remarking upon the extraordinary dissimilarity in the colour and marking of the skins of the three specimens before us, and which fully accounts for the difficulty so many naturalists have found in classifying these felidæ. Lastly, we notice the cheetah, or Indian hunting leopard, said to be the ‘pard’ of the ancients, common to various countries in Asia, and also throughout Africa, but not found in Ceylon, where the common leopard has erroneously gained the title of cheetah. This interesting animal has been rightly placed as a separate subgenus from the true cats, on account of the claws being only partially retractile, with the tips always visible. It is a high-standing, slender creature, thin across the loins like a greyhound, and carrying the tail more after the manner of the dog than the true cat.