Jungle Cat

Among the domestic animals of the Earth,

the cat has long been man's friend and companion.

The association is an old and honored one,

reflected in the art of ancient cultures

and the symbols of long-forgotten dynasties.

Yet for all its time in civilized circles,

the cat has never completely given up its wilderness ways.

Given the opportunity, the tame cat will inevitably revert to type,

and become again, the stealthy hunter.

Though it may have forgotten the old techniques from lack of practice,

its natural instincts remain unchanged.

And for the domestic cat,

there's always human hospitality to fall back on, in case of failure.

For its wild cousins, however, there's no bowl of milk at the end of the trail.

Out of necessity, the cats of the wilderness must fend for themselves.

Thus, their talents as hunters are sharpened to the highest degree.

And on this common ground, all cats are alike.

The tiger, for one, is merely the tabby cat drawn larger than life.

It moves with the same grace

and hunts its prey with the same calculated cunning.

It's perhaps because he has never dominated this species,

that man has always regarded the cats with admiration and respect.

For as long as human history has been recorded,

he has honored the greatest of cats, the lion.

In the culture of every ancient civilization,

this animal has served as a symbol of royalty and power.

In the realm of nature, the living lion walks in lordly splendor,

a true king of beasts.

Almost any of the great cats could wear the lion's crown,

for all are noted for their courage, their intelligence and their power.

In all the animal kingdom, there exist no better hunters.

As a stalker of prey, the cheetah is without peer.

In Ancient Egypt, this beast was actually trained for the hunt.

The cheetah is a docile creature.

In fact, it could almost be taken for a dog,

and like the greyhound it resembles, literally runs its quarry to earth.

At the moment of the kill, however,

the cheetah becomes completely the cat,

and could never be mistaken for anything else.

The leopard is another to be reckoned with.

Here is a killer both wanton and ruthless,

the executioner of the African plain.

The great cats of the world are a powerful force in nature.

It would seem to be their function to purge all other species of weaklings.

And in such a role, they're known on every continent.

In North America, the ruling member of the tribe is the cougar,

or mountain lion.

Here is a hunter with a price on his head.

Elusive and mysterious in his habits,

the cougar lives by his wits

and somehow survives just because he is a cat,

self-reliant, resourceful and clever.

But of all these stalkers of prey,

the one that is the most unique is the cat of South America,

the jaguar.

This is the jungle cat.

Here is the quintessence of all that goes to make up a true cat.

For grace and beauty, for perseverance and power,

the jaguar will hold its own with all others of its kind.

The jungle cat lives deep in the rainforests of Brazil.

It roams the vast Amazon Basin,

half a continent covered with tangled vegetation.

Its secret domain is the scene of our True-Life Adventure,

and its predatory habits, our theme.

For this is the story of the greatest hunter of them all.

Though the treetop residents are relatively safe,

the creatures living on the forest floor must keep forever on the alert.

Among these, the tiny rodents called the pacas

tend to suffer the greatest losses.

Their number is almost constantly dwindling,

for in the very nature of things here, the paca is to the jaguar

what the ordinary mouse is to the ordinary cat,

fair game always.

With every kill the jaguar makes, the monkeys call her names,

from a safe distance, naturally.

And the macaws hurl down their own kind of epithets.

But the great cat goes about her deadly business,

unmoved and undisturbed.

Hers is a career of assassination,

and she makes no pretense that it should be otherwise.

The jaguars live in the largest jungle on Earth.

It is impassable and impenetrable,

a natural barrier to man and all his works.

And so it remains the jungle cat's exclusive domain.

Approximately 300,000 species of plants grow here,

more than in any other locale.

Rain falls nearly every day of the year.

In fact, it's measured in feet rather than inches.

And this accounts for the luxuriance of the vegetation.

This is a true rainforest.

Its peculiar characteristic is that everything grows to extraordinary size.

The palm trees shoot up hundreds of feet into the air,

towering above everything else.

Plants that are technically violets grow large as apple trees,

and a species of rose attains a height of 150 feet.

The vines are as thick as tree trunks,

and the wildflowers springing up on every side

are oversized orchids.

In this natural hothouse, they appear everywhere,

an endless profusion of exotic shapes and colors.

In quiet bayous, the lily pads grow big as tabletops,

covering the waters with a strange green floor.

This is a land crisscrossed with thousands of nameless streams.

Almost hidden by the overhanging foliage,

they go their way, unexplored, unknown and unrecorded on any map.

Only those that can qualify as major rivers

enjoy the distinction of a name.

And some, like the Iguaçú River, create spectacular waterfalls.

These are the cataracts of the Iguaçú,

on the border between Brazil and Argentina.

This panorama is world-famed and on a scale to match any on Earth.

On approaching the brink of the chasm,

these waters plunge 200 feet into the mist-filled gorge below.

The Iguaçú goes its way, independent of the main system of streams,

but most other Brazilian rivers

form a vast network that drains the heart of the jungle cat's domain.

Tributaries, like the Madeira, the Tapajós,

the Xingu, the Branco,

all combine their currents to create the mightiest river of all,

the Amazon.

Where the Rio Negro joins the Amazon,

the two rivers remain in suspended deadlock

for a considerable distance downstream.

So powerful is the Amazon's flow and so thick is the incoming silt,

that the two currents will not immediately blend.

Four thousand miles in length and some 200 miles wide at its mouth,

the Amazon carries more water to the sea

than any other river in the world.

At certain times of the year, it also overruns the land

and creates a scene of flood reaching as far as the eye can see.

Along the Amazon's course,

there is a teeming and colorful variety of life,

mammals and birds and reptiles among the strangest in nature.

This being the jungle, monkeys are everywhere.

Indeed, it would hardly seem a jungle without them.

But in addition to these, there are giant-sized lizards

that seem a throwback to a prehistoric past.

Then there are the weird birds, creatures out of a fantasy.

Such is the toucan,

whose bill resembles the claws of an oversized lobster.

Strange equipment indeed for the dainty fruits he favors.

This jungle locale teems with parrots

to the number of 100 different species.

Most of them dress in shades of green,

preferring to blend with their surroundings.

But here are birds of quite a different feather.

These are the macaws,

clothes-conscious cousins of the parrots,

who like to stand out in all their flamboyant beauty.

Perhaps the most brilliant plumage of all

belongs to the ibis family.

These are the scarlet ibis, debonair members of the stork clan.

They feed in undisturbed solitude along these hidden backwaters.

The river swarms with fish and the catchers of fish,

but none so unorthodox as the skimmer.

This bird's approach to the problem is indeed a strange one.

He hopes to make a catch without ever touching down on the surface.

There are just two things he must be careful about,

submerged logs and submerged crocodiles.

The South American version of the crocodile

is called the jacaré or sometimes the caiman.

It's a distinct species peculiar to this part of the world,

but it remains a typical crocodile

in its voracious habit of eating almost anything.

Sometimes, bird and reptile mingle in rather startling proximity.

Each seems to know the limit of the other's abilities

and just how far to go with the laws of chance.

The wiser among the egrets, however, will return to its own element

and take itself elsewhere when jacarés are known to be around.

The panic of a single bird will sometimes set off a chain reaction,

for none can tell when the jacaré will bid for its victim.

When the flamingos take to the sky,

the resulting panorama can be curiously beautiful and impressive.

This, then, is the world of the jungle cat.

In a way, it's a primeval Garden of Eden,

complete with serpent.

It's a strange and eerie world,

a world of paradox,

where plenty prevails, yet hunger stalks.

Here, life is hectic, fiercely competitive,

exciting and grim.

For this, we must remember, is the jungle, raw and untamed,

where all are ruled by the law of fang and claw.

Like all the cats, jaguars are aloof and independent,

and generally prefer to travel alone.

And since they are nomads by habit,

their roaming often takes them

over several hundred square miles of territory.

In the course of their patrols,

they come to adopt a certain hunting ground as their own,

and bitterly resent the intrusion of other jaguars.

And so, when an accidental meeting occurs,