Panda

“ Sometimes the animals are sacrificed and eaten. While the Panda is doing this every one collects the sweepings of his house in a winnowing-fan and throws them outside the village boundary, at the same time ringing a bell continuously. ”

“ Panda, pan′da, n. a remarkable animal in the bear section of Carnivores found in the south-east Himalayas.—Also Chitwah, or Red bear-cat.
Pandanus, pan-dā′nus, n. the screw-pipe, the typical genus of the Pandaneæ. [Malay.]
Pandation, pan-dā′shun, n. a yielding or warping. [L. pandāre, to bend.] ”

“ It saw that the latter was within reach: for half blinded by the beak of the bird, and half worried to death by the dog, the creature did not perceive, as Fritz had done, the approach of the elephant. It is possible it may have seen the danger, but not until the elephant had got in such dangerous proximity as left it no chance of escape.
Before the panda could make the slightest effort to get away from the ground, the elephant had lapped its prehensile proboscis around it, and lifted it into the air as if its body had been no heavier than a feather. ”

“ Skull high and compressed, with an alisphenoid canal, a short facial portion, and the ascending branch of the lower jaw, as in Aeluropus, very tall. Face cat-like, with moderate, erect, pointed ears. Claws blunt. Tail cylindrical and 373 ringed. Fur long and thick. Extra radial carpal bone moderate. The panda is a bright golden red animal, with black under-parts, ranging from the eastern Himalaya to north-western China, where it is represented by a distinct race. ”

“ Panda keeps, it is said, some pet vultures, and if his supply of beef is short, and he does not like killing an ox, he pats his darling birds on the head, asking them if they are not very hungry. Then calling one of his soldiers, he directs him to go and knock old Father So-and-So on the head, and drag him into the bush for his vultures, as they are very hungry. A fit meal for a vulture—a tough old Kaffir! ”

“ Pandani, and such genera of tropical monocotyledonous plants. All are evergreens of most vivid hue, some of which, having slender trailing stems, form magnificent masses; others twine round one another, and present impenetrable hillocks of green foliage ”

“ These structures and habits of growth fit the Pandanus for its especial habitat on the shores of tropical islands, to which its masses of nuts are drifted by the winds and currents, and on whose shores it can establish itself by the aid of its aërial roots. ”

“ It also grubs up worms and larvae, for which purpose its long snout is suited. The molars of the genus resemble those of Procyon.
There is not a median groove upon the nose. The palms and soles are naked. Six teats occur. There are thirteen dorsal vertebrae. Nasua nasica [32] and N. rufa are the best known and perhaps the only species. The colour of the fur varies a good deal, and has led to the use of other names for supposed species.
Aelurus, the Panda, is a largish animal found in the south-eastern Himalayas up to a height of 12,000 feet. ”

“ As the sun rose and diffused its rays around, a great number of butterflies, beetles, and other insects passed away in enjoyment their short fleeting lives, and revelled upon the sweets the flowers contained. A lofty species of Pandanus, named by the Malays Ninpuan, was very abundant in moist situations; it rose with its long foliage bending at the extremities, and as the tree increased in elevation it bore a closer resemblance to the growth of the palm tree, and attained the height of forty and fifty feet. ”

“ Friederich has heard the mountain very distinctly called Papandayan, by the natives in its immediate neighbourhood. In Kawi the word is written Pandai or Panday, of which there are more similar examples. It has been changed, in the colloquial language, into Pandé. Panda, Clough 353, is wisdom, understanding, science, learning. Pandita, Clough 353, learned, erudite, well informed in scholastic and theological study. Blacksmiths or workmen in iron have, in early ages, been looked upon as learned men, and hence in Java, till this day, a blacksmith is called a Pandé. ”

“ Varieties of the pandanus are to be seen, of which the leaves, in bunches, start from the ground, forming beautiful sheaves. Enormous ferns were to be met with, real trees in shape, and up which we clambered often, to cut the top branches, for their delicious perfume and which serve as food nearly the same as the palms. ”

“ At night the animal roams about searching for food, which chiefly consists of the fruits of the Corkscrew Palm, Pandanus odoratissimus. Its movements are sudden and jerky, and the animal is a fast and clever runner, as well as a splendid climber. ”

“ The wood of the Pandanus is very tough, and is used by the natives for making bows and spears; the long ribbon-like leaves are used for mats and the walls of their huts, and the fruits of some are eatable, but exceedingly hard. One species bears a cluster of small red fruit about the size of a banana; and another bears a huge melon-shaped fruit of a brilliant scarlet colour and weighing as much as thirty pounds and upwards. ”

“ The modern Pandanus or screw-pine of the tropical regions, which is not a pine, however, but a humble relation of the palms, is a stiffly branching tree, of a candelabra-like form, and with tufts of long leaves on its branches, and nuts or great hard berries for fruit, borne sometimes in large masses, and so protected as to admit of their drifting uninjured on the sea. The stems are supported by masses of aërial roots like those which strengthen the stems of tree-ferns. ”

“ When the night is cold, windy, or rainy, he usually covers his body with a heap of Pandanus, Nipa, or Fern leaves, like those of which his bed is made, and he is especially careful to wrap up his head in them. It is this habit of covering himself up which has probably led to the fable that the Orang builds huts in the trees. ”

“ The sea-side locality of the Pandaneæ, causes many of their fruits to fall into the water, wherein they are drifted by the winds and waves, until they find a resting place upon some distant shore. A single drupe of Pandanus, thus charged with seeds, transports the elements of vegetation to the rising volcanic and coral islands of the modern Pacific. The seed thus stranded upon new formed land, produces a plant which has peculiar provision for its support on a surface destitute of soil by long and large aerial roots protruded above the ground around the lower part of its trunk. ”

“ The limited powers of flight possessed by existing species would unfit them for crossing wide tracts of sea; but the parent form or forms of all these species must have been able to traverse broad tracts of ocean. These birds subsist on fallen fruits, seeds, &c.; but I have no data relating to them as seed-dispersers.
It is evident from the endemic character of most of the species of Pandanus in oceanic islands that, except with a few widely-spread littoral species, the dispersal of the genus has been for ages suspended. ”

“ Pandans are valued chiefly for their strong fibrous leaves, which are woven into mats, bags, and hats. Unless specially prepared, the soft plant tissue between the harder leaf fibers becomes dry and dirty and breaks in time; hence the ordinary pandan bag or mat can not be considered a durable article. However, when treated to a boiling process or when rolled, as explained for sabutan and the pandan of Majayjay, the leaves yield straw which is stronger and more durable than most palm or sedge straw used for the same purposes. ”

“ It is doubtful whether Pandanus odoratissimus, the shore-tree of the tropical beaches of the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans, of Australia, Malaya, and Southern Asia, can aid us much in any one locality, since its distribution has no doubt been often assisted by man. Yet it is probable that the currents have played a predominant part in its dispersal. Its fruits occur commonly in beach-drift, both in the Indian and Pacific oceans, and are often incrusted with serpulæ, polyzoa, and cirripedes. At certain seasons the currents bring them to Keeling Atoll in abundance. ”

“ Dr. Warburg, who says but little of the mode of dispersal of Pandanus drupes, regards the genus as having now two centres, 159one in the East African islands (Madagascar, the Mascarenes, and the Seychelles) , and the other in Papuasia (New Guinea, extending doubtless to New Caledonia) . My readers will recall to their minds that zoologists have at times felt bound to postulate a continent in both the centres of the genus Pandanus. There is the well-known Lemuria of the Indian Ocean, and then we have in the Western Pacific Forbes’ Antipodea and Hedley’s Melanesian Plateau. ”

“ From tree-ferns, nestling in the branches, tiny heads peeped out, and little feathered creatures chirruped a welcome. A civet-cat was lazily stroking its face with one paw. Something large and hairy stirred on a nest of dried grass, and sleepily a full-grown packda stretched himself and gazed at Piang. The python approached it, and a hairy paw was extended; his snakeship coiled up beside the ape, and the mina-bird flew to the ape’s shoulder. ”

“ The puma, or panther, takes precedence—the so-called lion of America. A sorry brute to bear the name belonging to the king of quadrupeds. Still, on the Llano Estacado, lord of all, save when confronted by the grizzly bear—then he becomes a cat.
As no grizzly has yet come upon the ground, and only two panthers, the wolves have it almost their own way, and only the vultures and eagles have to hold back. But for the birds there is a side dish on which they may whet their appetites, beyond reach of the beasts. ”

“ Satisfied with glutting its vengeance, the panther turned from the bear, and came directly to the water's edge to drink, and allay the parching thirst created by so great excitement; after which, it looked down and then up the stream, as though it sought a place to cross, that it might avoid the water; then, as if satisfied with revenge, and enjoying its victory, stood twisting and curling its tail like a cat, and then commenced licking itself dry. ”

“ Only some animal could have produced the noise; a human being would either have come up to him if a friend, or kept absolutely still if a foe. He looked and looked, and at last caught a glimpse of the panther's yellowish fur gliding along the ground. When a cat glides stealthily she is on the hunt. His curiosity was fully aroused; he longed to see what the animal was hunting and how he would succeed. Furthermore the panther is in the eyes of the Pueblo Indian the symbol of the greatest physical power. ”

“ The cougar and cat-pard I have seen alive, and am convinced they are of different species, and still more so from the tiger or panther; and as for the puma and jaguar, it is evident, from the testimony of those who have seen them, that the former is not a lion, nor the latter a tiger, and therefore, without scruple, we may pronounce, that neither the lion, tiger, nor even the panther, exist in America, any more than the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, camel, or the camelopard. ”

“ Thou shalt hear the terrible roar of the young elephants ranging in the asylum of Matanga, situated on the banks of Pampā. Thou shalt furthermore observe many a quickly moving, infuriated elephant, resembling clouds in hue and with red temporal juice oozing out of their heads, roaming here and there sometimes separately and again in a band. Those mighty elephants, roaming the forest, return to their woody homes, drinking the pleasant, pure and sweet smelling water of Pampā. ”

“ Then that cunning elephant sat down on the ground and pushed the bamboo along the ground straight before him toward the bananas. When the hairy end of the bamboo reached the stalk of the bananas, he began to twist the other end of the bamboo with the tips of his trunk; for an elephant can use the tips of his trunk in the same way that you use your fingers. ”

“ Leaping from the tangled vegetation of the jungle’s rim came a huge panther, with blazing eyes and bared fangs, and in his wake a score of mighty, shaggy apes lumbering rapidly toward them, half erect upon their short, bowed legs, and with their long arms reaching to the ground, where their horny knuckles bore the weight of their ponderous bodies as they lurched from side to side in their grotesque advance. ”

“ The panther is a ferocious and almost untamable animal, whose nature and habits are like those of the cat; except that the nature and powers of this domestic creature are in the panther immensely magnified, in strength and voracity. It is in the American forest what the tiger is in Africa and India, a dangerous and savage animal, the terror of all other creatures, as well as of the Indian and the white man. ”

“ In a part of a forest lived a lion named Thunder-Fang, in company with three counselors, a wolf, a jackal, and a camel, whose names were Meat-Face, Smart, and Spike-Ear. One day he fought with a furious elephant whose sharp-pointed tusk so tore his body that he withdrew from the world. ”

“ Here a young antelope, leaving his mother, [43] makes friends with the lion-cubs whose manes are not yet grown, and drinks at the bounteous breast of the lioness. Here a lion closes his eyes, and is pleased to have his moon-white mane pulled by the young elephants that mistake it for lotus-fibres. Here the monkey-tribe loses its capriciousness and brings fruit to the young munis after their bath. There the elephants, too, though excited, are tender-hearted, and do not drive away by their flapping the bees that dwell round their frontal bones, and stay motionless to drink their ichor. ”

“ Once a dark, clumsy tapir stared at us from a gap in the bushes, and then lumbered away through the forest; once, too, the yellow, sinuous form of a great puma whisked amid the brushwood, and its green, baleful eyes glared hatred at us over its tawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds, stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and white, upon every log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the crystal water was alive with fish of every shape and colour. ”