Panthers lap like dogs. They generally roam in couples. In districts that are well peopled, they are never seen in the daytime. In uninhabited regions, although they do go abroad in the day, they hunt only at night. They have not more than two or three cubs. The Arabs are far from regarding the panther with the esteem they accord to the lion. The lion, say they, if attacked, harassed, wounded, and surrounded by enemies, feels his courage heighten in the midst of the uproar and in the thick of the danger. He fearlessly encounters his assailants and fights to the death, while the panther only accepts the combat when it finds no way to retreat. In a word, the lion, as soon as the combat has fairly commenced, never retires, while the panther escapes whenever an opportunity presents itself. Another difference is this—the lion will devour a man, the panther never. The latter generally strikes at his head, lacerates him with its claws, and inflicts terrible bites, and then, preferring the flesh of other animals to that of a son of Adam, it leaves him there and goes in search of other prey. In a country where it is able to supply itself with the flesh of wild boar, sheep, cattle, and game of all kinds, and where it can satiate itself with the carcases of animals, it kills man, not because it is hungry, but in self-defence, as the only way of shaking off an enemy. In the case of the lion, man is often the game in quest of which he stalks abroad; while in that of the panther he is an adversary to be avoided, and never to be provoked. You may pass boldly and confidently close to the thick brushwood that conceals it, and, if you do not begin the attack, it will remain crouched as close as a partridge, even holding in its breath. But if you fire and miss, it will spring upon, bite, and lacerate you, and then, still distrustful of itself, will take itself off.