For untold centuries the Greek princes of India have kept tame hunting leopards to run down the small but exceedingly swift and agile blackbuck. When the game is sighted, a hood is placed over the animals eyes.  At the right moment it is removed. A quick glance around and it sights the game. Then it begins a quiet stalk toward the antelope through the low bush. When one is about 200 yards away, it leaps forward and makes a straight run toward the blackbuck, which takes off at top speed with a series of bounding leaps. Almost invariably a good cheetah will bring down the game after short run.

The cheetah is the only cat animal whose claws cannot be retracted or drawn into their sheaths among the pads of the feet.

The chimpanzee is one of the anthropoid, or manlike, apes. It lives in the vast tropical rain forest that stretches across the center of Africa.

It is probably the best known of all the great apes, for it is extensively used as an experimental animal in the study of human diseases, and because it is relatively common and easily obtained. Lists of the ten most intelligent animals invariably mention the chimpanzee because of its imitative ability which enables it to perform many human feats, such as riding a bicycle. Behavior studies have shown that it has a good reasoning power; test animals, for instance, learn to pile of boxes to reach food above their heads.

In adult male chimpanzee stands about 5 feet high, weighs 125 to 175 pounds. Females are perhaps a foot shorter and weigh 100 to 150 pounds. In both sexes the hair is long and black.

Chimpanzees travel in small groups or family parties, feeding on wild fruits. Although they can stand and walk upright, they generally travel on all fours, with the hands doubled up.

The name barasingha is an Indian word that means twelve tines and refers to the many tines, or prongs, on the antlers of the deer. Swamp deer is another name for the animal, although this name is applied to a whole group of the deer and does not necessarily mean that they live in swampy places. As a matter of fact, the barasingha deer is chiefly a grasslands creature.

It is a fairly large deer, and a male may stand as high as 3’10″ at the shoulder, and away as much as 570 pounds. The antlers average about 30 inches long.

There are many kinds of deer in India and in such a vast country, with many kinds of climates, and everything from rolling, grassy plains to almost penetrable jungles, deer have become adapted to the varying conditions. The barasingha, for instance, is sometimes found in open forest but it prefers the outskirts of the woods and the rolling grasslands where the trees are well scattered. Here, in wintertime, little herds of 30 to 50 barasingha travel together to graze on the luxuriant grass.

Another common name for the chevrotain, the “mouse deer,” gives one a good idea of the size and appearance of this delicate and dainty little creature. The only misleading thing about the name is that it is neither a mouse nor a deer. Actually it is placed by naturalists and a little group all its own.

There are two kinds of chevrotain’s, one found in the forests of the Congo and west Africa and the other in southern Asia, but they are much alike. The Indian species is partly spotted with white on the body color of Brown minutely speckled with yellow. It stands about 10 to 12 inches high and weighs only 5 or 6 pounds.

These slender legged little creatures are timid and shy and creep through the tall grass with all the quietness of a mouse. They seldom venture out of shelter to feed on leaves and grasses except in the mornings and evenings. Their habit of walking stifflegged has given rise to the erroneously that they have no joints or knees in their legs. They are fairly plentiful in forest areas, and many are snared by native hunters for food.

The chevrotain’s need to be shy and wary, for they have no horns for defense and the jungles where they live abound with enemies of every kind, from the various wildcats to big monitor lizards and even snakes.

This savage looking baboon is a cousin of the equally hideous mandrill, both of which live in west Africa. One explanation of the named drill is that it is a very old English word meaning baboon or ape. A mandrill is, by that account, a man ape.

The drill is a heavily muscled, powerful animal. Walking on all fours like the dog, it has a deliberate and confident air as if it knows just exactly how strong and dangerous it is. Two drills have often been exhibited in the Bronx zoo and all of them have had the habit of yawning frequently, to show their long teeth. They yawn so often, when they cannot possibly be sleepy, that it is supposed that this is a gesture that may serve to frighten other animals.

The bare skin around the drills tail is bright red and most of its body is dark blue, although the skin is usually well hidden by the thick grayish brown hair. Unlike the Mandrill, whose face is marked with brightly colored ridges, the drills face is solid, velvety black. More than 100 years ago, when the animal was not very well known, scientists thought it was simply a young mandrill and that as it grew older its face would take on the bright mandrill colors.

The drill travels in large groups and feeds on vegetables, roots, insects, snakes, small animals and the like.

One of the most mischievous members of their own family is the coatimundi of Mexico south through Central America to Paraguay. Generally reddish brown in color, with a long, brown or black wing detail and extraordinarily long and slender nose, it is a grotesque little creature about the size of a full-grown cat. Cats are supposed to have a great deal of curiosity, but a coatimundi is all curiosity; it wants to know everything about everything.

In Central and South America this little animal is often kept as a pet, but if it is not chained up or locked in a cage, it is liable to explore one’s house so thoroughly that the next morning everything will be scratched or broken open or knocked off-the-shelf.

The coati usually travels through the jungles in small troops of half a dozen to a score of individuals, always in search of food. It eats fruits, young birds, eggs, lizards and insects, and is said to have a clever way of catching the big lizards known as iguanas. When the coatis are scampering through the trees and come upon and an iguana basking on a limb,  the lizard often dropped to the ground and runs to another tree, with coatis in full chase. However, the coatis seem to have learned this lizard habit, and sometimes they split up their troop so that some stay on the ground, while the others hunt through the trees. Then, when the iguana drops to the ground, the coatis under the tree are sure to catch it.

Of all the many interesting kinds of deer, the pere (father) David’s deer is worth special mention.  For untold centuries this deer roamed the swampy, reedy plains of North China but was gradually killed off until the only deer left in the last century were held by the Emperor of China in a small park south of Beijing. This park, called the Non Hai-tzu, was surrounded by a brick wall 45 miles long. No Europeans were allowed inside. But one day the French missionary, Pere David, looked over the wall and saw the deer. He wrote home to Europe about them. In 1866 diplomats got permission to send a few specimens to Paris, where they were scientifically described and named for Pere David.

Some years later all the deer escaped from the Non Hai-tzu Park and were killed and eaten. But in Europe there were still a few survivors of the animals sent out in 1866, and now there are several hundred on an estate in England. These and a few specimens in the New York zoological Park are the only Pere David’s deer left in the world.

The deer is light reddish. It stands about 4 feet high. Unlike most other deer, it sheds its antlers twice a year.

This is the bear that is sometimes seen tied up with a chain at filling stations and roadside restaurants in many parts of the country. A black bear in the woods is usually not dangerous unless it is wounded or defending cubs, but tame bears along the roadside are tricky and have sometimes killed their keepers.

All through the summer the black bear feeds on berries, fruits, honey, ants, fish, mice, ground squirrels and so on. Well larded with fat, when cold weather comes it dens up in a cave or a hollow tree or under a log, and sleeps through the winter. The cubs (usually two) are born while the mother is denned up. They are tiny creatures weighing only nine to twelve ounces. When spring comes, the mother leads them out of the den and begins their education – teaching them how to catch mice, how to turn over stones to find grubs, how to dig for roots and how to climb trees when danger threatens. A black bear can run very fast and can climb a tree almost as quickly as a squirrel.

The tallest of the wild oxen of the world is the gaur of India, Burma and the Malay Peninsula. In adult bull will stand 6’4″ at the shoulder and its body is massive and truly impressive. The horns reach a length of 34 inches on the outward curve. It is also known as the Indian bison, Burmese bison, or Malay bison. The latter is commonly known as the seladang.

The Gaur’s home is in the jungles and hilly thickets, where it usually travels in herds of a dozen or so animals, ruled by the strongest bull. As young bulls come along, they strive with the old leader for mastery and eventually he is driven off to live the rest of his days alone.

Gaur herds are usually shy and preferred to take refuge in the denser parts of the forest rather than to fight. Tigers and men – mostly native meat hunters – are their only real enemies, and even a tiger is no match for a full grown bull. Old bulls, however, weakened by age and disease, probably often fall prey to tigers.

In many parts of its range the gaur is now given government protection because the wild herds that have been attacked by hoof and mouth disease, contracted from native cattle roaming the forest, and their numbers have been seriously depleted.

Its a grazing animal, feeding on grass, leaves and tender bamboo shoots. As a rule, it feeds during the early morning in late afternoon, resting in the jungle shade during the day.

Thick woods or rough tree-clad cliffs are favorite haunts of the badger, although it also often digs its burrows on fern-clad hillsides. Young badgers, usually three or four, are born in the deep recesses of the burrows.

The European badger eats roots, fruits, nuts, birds’ eggs and small animals. An old name for it in England is “Brock,” and in Germany it is known as the “Dachs” – hence the dachshund, or badger-hound, used in badger hunting.