one. I had no weapon of defence, and
with one spring or blow of his paw the beast could have annihilated me.
To move I knew would only encourage his attack. It occurred to me at the
moment that I had heard of the power of man's eye over wild animals, and
accordingly I fixed my gaze as intently, as the agitation of such a
moment enabled me, on his eyes: we stared at each other for some
seconds, when, to my inexpressible joy, the beast turned and bounded
down the straight open path before me." "This scene occurred just at
that period of the morning when the grazing animals retired from the
open patena to the cool shade of the forest: doubtless, the leopard had
taken my approach for that of a deer, or some such animal. And if his
spring had been at a quadruped instead of a biped, his distance was so
well measured, that it must have landed him on the neck of a deer, an
elk, or a buffalo; as it was, one pace more would have done for me. A
bear would not have let his victim off so easily."

It is said, but I never have been able personally to verify the fact,
that the Ceylon leopard exhibits a peculiarity in being unable entirely
to retract its claws within their sheaths.

Of the lesser feline species the number and variety in Ceylon is
inferior to that of India. The Palm-cat[1] lurks by day among the fronds
of the coco-nut trees, and by night makes destructive forays on the
fowls of the villagers; and, in order to suck the blood of its victim,
inflicts a wound so small as to be almost imperceptible. The glossy
genette[2], the "_Civet_" of Europeans, is common in the northern
province, where the Tamils confine it in cages for the sake of its musk,
which they collect from the wooden bars on which it rubs itself. Edrisi,
the Moorish geographer, writing in the twelfth century, enumerates musk
as one of the productions then exported from Ceylon.[3]

[Footnote 1: Paradoxurus typus, _F. Cuv_.]

[Footnote 2: Viverra Indica, _Geoffr., Hodgson_.]

[Footnote 3: EDRISI, _Geogr_., sec. vii. Jaubert's translation, t. ii.
p. 72.]

_Dogs_.--There is no native wild dog in Ceylon, but every village and
town is haunted by mongrels of European descent, which are known by the
generic description of _Pariahs_. They are a miserable race,
acknowledged by no owners, living on the garbage of the streets and
sewers, lean, wretched, and mangy, and if spoken to unexpectedly,
shrinking with an almost involuntary cry. Yet in these persecuted
outcas