简介
混沌武士无删减版In captivity, however, especially if taken while yet young, his character frequently undergoes a change as favourable as that which takes place under the same circumstances in the generality of his tribe. The pair at present in the Tower are male and female; they are both Asiatic, and are confined in the same den, but they differ very materially in temper and disposition. The female, which is the older of the two, and has been a resident in the Menagerie for upwards of four years, is exceedingly tame, suffering herself to be patted and caressed by the keeper, and licking his hands. Strangers, however, especially ladies, should be cautious of approaching her too familiarly, as she has always evinced a particular predilection for the destruction of umbrellas, parasols, muffs, hats, and such other articles of dress as may happen to come within her reach, seizing them with the greatest quickness and tearing them into pieces almost before the astonished visiter has become aware of the loss. To so great an extent hTo what cause then, if the similarity between these two animals be so great, and the points of distinction between them so trifling, can we attribute the very different impressions which we have all received, and in all probability continue to cherish, with regard to their respective characters? Perhaps something like a plausible answer to this question may be found in the fact, that our notions of the Lion have been formed on the striking and exaggerated pictures of his noble qualities, for which we are indebted to the poets of antiquity, who contemplated him only in his captive and almost domesticated state; while our early ideas of the Tiger were derived in a great measure from the equally exaggerated statements of miserable and pusillanimous Hindoos, the spiritless and unresisting victims of every species of oppression, who regarded him with almost unspeakable horror as the merciless tyrant of their forests,—a tyrant whose ferocious temper and sanguinary ravages were equalled only by those of the human de
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