“ The expression of the wounded Leopard is that of painful suffering mingled with dread. Together, they amount to agony. He shrieks while he submits. The Tiger is still enraged and resisting, though astounded with the power and suddenness of the Lion’s attack. He is losing his energy of resistance, and is beginning to feel that all resistance is vain. ”

“ We were about to say more of these things, and to request attention more particularly to the hinder parts of the female, but the knit brow and threatening eye of the Lion glares upon us with its high claims, and terrible truth, and we cannot but perceive a broad, pervading, and dextrous display of light, shade, and expression of texture.—Now, where there is just harmony of parts, it is the whole which merits praise ”

“ By the Character of an animal, we mean those permanencies of his look and features which he always offers to view when in a placid, or unimpassioned state: by his Expression, the variations of muscular action superinduced on character, to which he is liable, as the storms of passion sweep by, and his mind becomes agitated by external circumstances acting on the ardours of his instinct. ”

“ In man the upper eye-lid is raised by a muscle coming from the bottom of the orbit. But, besides this muscle, animals of prey in whom there is that peculiar and ferocious splendour of the eye, which we distinguish in the Tiger, for example, or the Lion—have three muscles infixed in the eye-lids, which drawing the eye-lids backward upon the peculiarly prominent eye-ball, produce the fixed straining of the eye, and by stretching the coats, give a greater brilliancy to the reflection. ”

“ The eye-ball is terrible, and the retraction of the flesh of the lips indicates the most savage fury. But the first, is merely the exerted attention of the animal; and the other a preparatory exposure of the canine teeth. The great animals of prey—the Lion and the Tiger—are quite incapable of any other expression of feature, than this particular display of ferociousness. When they fawn upon their keeper, there is no motion in their features that indicates affection. ”

“ If, however, we should grant that they may not be capable of affectionate expression toward their keeper, we can scarcely doubt that—toward their young—if we could observe them in their wild state, and in their moments of playful intercourse and enjoyment among each other—they are: at least, we think there are motions in their features that indicate affection, as well as fear, enquiry, surprise, gratitude, pleasurable wantonness, and some other sentiments, or emotions. ”

“ With regard to the creature itself, it is said, what has been called the external signs of passion, are merely the concomitants of those voluntary movements, which the passions or habits suggest; that the glare of the Lion’s eye, for example, is the consequence of a voluntary exertion to see his prey more clearly—his grin, or snarl, the natural motion of uncasing his fangs before he uses them. ”

“ The eyes of the Feline tribe—of every face in nature a striking and important feature—vary in the different species, and are capable of much alteration in the same animal; as instinctive impulse, or internal emotion, changes the expression of his countenance; and also from the degrees of light which act upon their pupils. Of Lions the pupils of the eyes are circular, and not of a yellow colour, as has been stated in the most diffuse modern dissertations on the Carnivora, but black. It is the iris of the Lion’s eye that is yellow. They appear to be best suited to nocturnal, or twilight, vision ”

“ Hence it is rarely that a Tiger pursues; but, if the situation permit, his cunning will not fail to effect his purpose, he will steal along the road-side among the bushes parallel with the traveller’s course, until one of the many chances which present themselves of finding him within reach, induces to the attack. Often, where the country is rather too open to allow his proceeding in this manner, the Tiger will take a sweep among underwood or through ravines, in order to meet the traveller again at a spot whence he may make his spring. ”

“ The Pointer is placed in a very interesting attitude admirably contrasted with the well chosen position of the setter his companion; while the hare, the object of their attraction, is not only judiciously placed, but the representation is strikingly true to nature. This representation of dogs setting a hare displays not only a correct knowledge of the subject but is one of those faithful delineations that cannot fail to merit the most unqualified approbation. ”

“ Whoever regards the faces of a flock of Sheep, will see in them an infinite variety of Character, with very little Expression, and that little without diversity: and if we descend a step lower in the scale of being, and contemplate the finny tribe, where Character is not wanting, we find no Expression at all. ”

“ To be sure, what might become a Lion in the procession of the Cardinal Virtues, might be rather unsuitable in his den, or within the precincts of those wild haunts, where he is accustomed to roam in his natural state. We have often read of the fabled Men-bulls, or (Minotaurs,) and we find such on the coinage of Crete. These allegorical creatures of Rubens, which, alas! have sometimes been quoted by Artists without half his genius, and placed in savage conflicts, or beside their Britannias—are a species of Men-lions. ”

“ Reverting here to our own scholastic distinction, we think that Nature has, in the instance of this species of quadrupeds, mingled with similar success, energy of character, with a degree of mildness of expression. ”

“ In all gramnivorous animals, the skin of the head is closely attached to the skull, and capable only of very limited motion: the eye is almost uniformly mild, and the lips unmoved by passion.
“It is in carnivorous animals, with whose habits and manner of life, ferocity is instinctively connected, as the great means of their subsistence, that rage is distinguished by the most remarkable strength of expression. ”

“ Edwin Landseer there is much of violent animal Expression, and Character fades before it, or rather, is absorbed in it. It tells a story of the past as well as the present, and is pregnant with a catastrophe not difficult to anticipate from the actions and expressions of the parties engaged. A Fawn has been seized by a Leopard, who has been despoiled of his prey by a more powerful Tiger. The Tiger in his turn becomes the victim of an enraged Lion. ”

“ The Tiger, on the contrary, will seek his prey by day as well as by night; and during twilight the colour of his eyes is that of a blue-green flame. If a stranger passes near a Tiger in a menagerie, the colour of the animal’s eyes will sometimes alter suddenly, from yellow-green to blue-green ”

“ Size seems to occasion no deviation in the Tiger’s system of attack, which is founded on the art of surprising. We find, accordingly, that such as happen to keep the opposite side of a road, by which they are somewhat beyond the first spring, often escape injury; the Tiger being unwilling to be seen before he is felt. ”

“ Shaw observes that Linnæus himself has confounded the Panther with the Leopard; but adds, that “a true distinctive mark between them, is by no means easy to communicate either by description or even by figure.” He thinks that the Leopard is the smaller of the two species of animals, and its colour a paler yellow: and Mr. Griffith, in his “Carnivora,” says, “A very fine animal is now exhibiting at Exeter ’Change under the name of Leopard, which is much larger as well as brighter than any other Leopard in that Menagerie, and should, therefore, according to Shaw, seem to be the Panther. ”

“ But we think that such Lion-looks are to be seen in Nature; and that such were seen, when the Dog which appealed to, and obtained, the royal pity, was first thrown into the Lion’s den at the Tower. We believe that this representation of the Lion and Snake is not taken from any old master, but is Mr. Spilsbury’s own design.
10 No. VIII. Neither is there any expression of ferocity, but of home comfort, in these two maneless Lions—or Lion and Lioness of Senegal. That which is asleep, however, rather illustrates our definition of Character, and is so far out of the question. ”

“ They form a tribe that is especially and properly Carnivorous, being the only class of quadrupeds that are exclusively flesh-eaters. Their jaws are very completely armed for this purpose; their canine teeth being very long and angular, with the edges of the angles turned toward the inside of their mouths; so that when the animal has caused them to meet, or cross each other in the flesh of its prey, these formidable teeth will cut or tear a way through, by drawing them back without opening his mouth. ”

“ The gramnivorous animals, which seek their subsistence, not by preying upon others, nor by the ferocity, contest, and victory which supply the carnivorous with food, have in their features no strong expression of rage. ”

“ Tigers are extremely partial to such sites as command a road, selecting one rather less frequented, in preference to one that is much in use. In the former, they are certain of finding as much as will answer their daily wants. If, however, the haunt be on a public road, it is usually at some spot abounding with grass or bushes, especially the prauss, and in the vicinity of some ample cover supplied with water, to which the prey can be dragged. ”

“ But the two quadrupeds continued, ever after, to live together on the most friendly and affectionate terms; constantly inhabiting the same cage, and habitually partaking of the same messes of provision. The Lioness, though now grown large, having never seen any other mother, continued through life to shew marks of daughterly obedience, and the bitch, of maternal regard. ”

“ Character and Expression, in the carnivorous class of animals, to which we here solicit attention, are always co-existent—their proportions varying with the existing occasions—in pictorial exhibitions of such subjects. ”

“ The former, seems to hold its court in the solid and massy parts: the latter, agitates, ofttimes rebelliously, the nerves and muscles. Character is ever present, both in the animal countenance, and in the “human face divine.” The most violent expression does not proscribe, or obliterate, character. Individuality consists of it, as far as concerns external appearance; and it forms the system of vowels of the language of Nature, without which no Expression could be. ”

“ The shaggy manes, and the latent terror that sits gloomily enthroned in the open eyes of the superior Lion—suited to the darkness of the den, and the nature of this animal’s sense of vision,—are as well thought of, as they are executed ”

“ The violent passions mark themselves so distinctly on the countenances both of men and of animals, that we are apt in the first instance to consider the movements by which they are indicated, as certain signs or characters provided by Nature, for the express purpose of intimating the internal emotion ”

“ Tigers are hunted in India by Elephants assisted by fleet horses. We have in this clever picture a Tiger couching amongst the jungle seemingly undetermined whether to spring or to make off, the horse scared and frightened evidently has come upon him unexpectedly; an Elephant at a little distance is hastening towards the spot. ”

“ Surely there is, about these Carnivorous and terrible creatures, a saving grace—a beauty in their dreadfulness, which is exceedingly interesting, although it co-exist with cruelty: for if they are cruel, their cruelty is involuntary, and not implacable ”

“ In short, Stubbs’s delineation agrees best with the definition of Cuvier, whose discernment and philosophical tact are by no means inferior to that indefatigability for which he is praised by Griffith.
Of this Leopard and Panther, the actions and expression (although not the character—their noses and mouths being of longer and larger proportions) are very much those of the common domestic Cat, when in a playful mood. Something there is of burlesque clumsiness in their play—resembling Hercules with the distaff ”

“ When, therefore, it is said, that the Panther much 16resembles the Jaguar, it is always strongly to be suspected that the type whence the observations are taken is an American animal. If the contrary be clearly established, and the animal be found to have large round or oval open marks of black, with a central spot on the sides and back, and a tail longer than from its insertion to the ground, it may be concluded that it is the real Panther. ”

“ Their claws, and the formation of their feet, too, are eminently conducive to their predacious 6and carnivorous habits. They walk on their toes: yet not so much from that habitual stealthiness of pace, by which they advance unperceived till within a spring of their prey; as because it is also the means of that celerity of motion which is necessary to the very existence of animals that can feed only on flesh.
Their claws are exceedingly powerful ”