--stricken through the thickets, endeavouring to
shake off its foe. It will even fearlessly attack the alligator, in
spite of the latter's enormous jaws,--avoiding which, by its agility, it
will tear open the reptile's side, and devour it before life is extinct.
It lies watching from a projecting trunk for the huge manatee swimming
by, and grappling it with its claws, holds it fast in the struggle for
life and death, by degrees dragging the vast body out of the water, and
never letting go its grasp till it has succeeded in capturing its prey.
Turtles become its easy victims. Watching for them as they crawl up the
sandy banks, it turns them helplessly over with its paws. The capybara,
or water-hog, seems born for the especial purpose of serving it as food,
enormous numbers of that big rodent being devoured by it. Even active
monkeys cannot escape it. It will climb the trees and surprise them
when sleeping; or sometimes, lying in concealment, springs out among a
troop of them joyously gambolling, unsuspicious of danger, when their
shrieks of terror and the hoarse roar of the jaguar may be heard
resounding through the forest.

But where flocks and herds are collected in the neighbourhood of man's
abode, the jaguar is especially dreaded, as it will spring upon a horse
and bring it to the ground with ease; it has been known to drag one many
yards to the water's side, and swim across the river with its prey,
carrying it away on the opposite side to its home in the forest. Sheep
and deer fall easy victims. When seizing a deer or horse, it leaps on
the animal's back, and grasping the head with its claws, wrenches it
back till the vertebrae of the neck are broken.

There are but two animals who do not fear the jaguar. The great
ant-eater is defended from the monster's attacks by its shaggy, thick
coat. It will often grasp the jaguar in its powerful claws, and keep it
in a close embrace, while these formidable weapons tear open its side--
treating it as some chiefs in India were in the habit of treating their
guests, whom they pretended to receive with an embrace of friendship,
their hands armed with the steel-formed claws in imitation of those of
tigers. Though the savage little peccaries, when caught singly, are
quickly despatched by the jaguar, yet when meeting it collected in a
herd, they so fiercely assault it with their sharp tusks, that it is
either pierced to death, in spite of the blows of its claws, or
compel