ed on the ground, like a gorged
cat, and was in such high good humor after his satisfactory meal, that
on the dogs attacking him he was disposed to play with them; a bullet
was therefore lodged in his shoulder, on which rough salute he sprang
out so quickly on his watching assailant, that he not only received the
spear in his body, but tumbled the man over, and they rolled on the
ground together. "I thought," said the brave fellow, "that I was no
longer a capitaz, as I held up my arm to protect my throat, which the
jaguar seemed in the act of seizing; but at the very moment that I
expected to feel his fangs in my flesh, the green fire which had blazed
upon me from his eyes flashed out--he fell upon me, and with a quiver
died."

Colonel Hamilton relates that when travelling on the banks of the
Magdalena, he remarked a young man with his arm in a sling, and on
inquiring the cause, was told that about a month before, when walking in
a forest, a dog he had with him began to bark at something in a dark
cavern overhung with bushes; and on his approaching the entrance, a
jaguar rushed on him with great force, seizing his right arm, and in the
struggle they both fell over a small precipice. He then lost his senses,
and on recovering found the jaguar had left him, but his arm was
bleeding and shockingly lacerated. On surprise being expressed that the
animal had not killed him, he shrugged up his shoulders, and remarked,
"La bienaventurada virgen Maria le habia salvo." The blessed Virgin had
saved him.

In the province of Buenaventura it is said that the Indians kill the
jaguar by means of poisoned arrows, about eight inches in length, which
are thrown from a blow-pipe: the arrows are poisoned with a moisture
which exudes from the back of a small green frog, found in the provinces
of Buenaventura and Choco. When the Indians want to get this poison from
the frog, they put him near a small fire, and the moisture soon appears
on his back; in this the points of the small arrows are dipped, and so
subtle is the poison that a jaguar struck by one of these little
insignificant weapons, soon becomes convulsed and dies.

The jaguar has the general character of being untameable, and of
maintaining his savage ferocity when in captivity, showing no symptoms
of attachment to those who have the care of him. This, like many other
points in natural history, is a popular error; there is at the present
time a magnificent jaguar in the Zoologica