vender scent. She opened the stopper, and splashed a few
drops of the scent through the bars. Then the leopard simply went crazy
with delight. He leaped upon the places on the floor where the drops had
fallen, and he rubbed his nose on them, and rolled over them. Then the
lady knew that it was the scent that the leopard loved.

After that she gave him the lavender to smell every day, and the leopard
became so tame that he allowed her to come to the bars and pat his body.

But as this is a true story, I must tell you the ending. One of the men
passengers on that ship gave the leopard a large piece of cotton-wool
soaked in lavender. That was unfortunate--I mean it was unfortunate that
the man used cotton-wool instead of a handkerchief or even a piece of
cloth.

The leopard played with the cotton-wool in delight, and rubbed his nose
and face on it. In doing so he must have got the cotton-wool into his
mouth--and then he must have taken in a deep breath. We don't know
whether he meant to do that, as he liked the perfume so much, or whether
he took the breath without meaning to do so. In any case, the
cotton-wool got into his windpipe, and he tried to cough it out; but he
could not. The foolish passenger did not know what was the matter; and
so he did nothing.

Then in a few days an inflammation set in, and the poor leopard died.
Some people are so thoughtless!

CHAPTER XV

American Leopard: The Jaguar

Now I shall tell you about an American leopard. He is called the
_jaguar_. He lives mostly in Central America and South America. His
favorite country is Brazil, near the Amazon and other rivers that flow
into the Amazon.

Some people call the jaguar the American _tiger_. This is a mistake,
because a tiger is striped, not spotted; and the jaguar is spotted, like
a leopard. So it is more correct to call the jaguar the American
_leopard_.

He has all the qualities of other leopards that I have already described
to you. But his spots are a little larger and not quite so completely
round; they are more nearly square, with rounded corners.

All four-footed animals can swim naturally in some fashion, but leopards
can swim especially well. And the jaguar, who lives near the Amazon and
other rivers, is a champion swimmer. He swims as easily as he climbs
trees. So he eats fish as often as he eats monkeys!

Yes, he actually catches a monkey sleeping on the bough of a tree! He
climbs up so silently that the monkey d