PROCEEDINQS 



WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Vol. Ill, pp. 577-600. December n, 1901. 



PRELIMINARY REVISION OF THE PUMAS (FELIS 

 CONCOLOR GROUP). 



By C. Hart Merriam. 



The Pumas or Cougars form a strongly marked group, easily 

 distinguished from the other Cats by the following characters 

 (taken collectively) : size large ; build slender ; head relatively 

 small; tail long ; body without markings (except in the very 

 young) . They are confined to America, where they range from 

 southern Patagonia northward over nearly the whole of South 

 and Central America, Mexico, and the United States, and reach 

 their northern limit in southern Canada (Ontario in the east; 

 British Columbia in the west). During the past centur}^ their 

 range in the United States has become greatly restricted and 

 over large areas they have been exterminated by man. They 

 are not now known to inhabit New England, with the possible 

 exception of the Green Mts. of Vermont, though formerly found 

 In Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. 

 In the State of New York they were killed in the Catskills within 

 the memory of our fathers, and in the Adirondacks, where until 

 recently they were fairly common, a few probably still exist. 

 They still occur in Florida and in the lowlands of Louisiana, but 

 in other parts of the United States are rather strictly confined to 

 mountainous regions.^ 



Pumas w^ere known to the early naturalists, and in 1771 Lin- 

 neeus named the Brazilian species I^clis concolor. From time to 



1 Their distribution by States was carefully worked out by Dr. F. W. True in 

 1889 — Report U. S. National Museum for 1889, pp. 595-600, 1891. 



Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci., December 1901. 577 



