582 MERRIAM 



Felis cougitar Kerr. Pennsylvania. 



JPelis coryi Bangs. Florida. 



Fell's hippolestes Merriam. Wind River Mountains/ Wyoming. 



Pelts hippolestes olympiis Merriam. Olympic Mountains, Wash. 



Felis hippolestes aztecus nob. Colonia Garcia, Chihuahua, Mexico. 



Fclis bangsi nob. Colombia, South America. 



Felis bangsi costaricensis nob. Chiriqui, Panama or Costa Rica 

 (boundary in dispute) . 



Felis concolor Linn. Brazil. 



Felis p7ima iSIolina. Chile. 



Felis putna patagoJiica nob. Base of Andes (latitude 47° 30' S.). 

 Patagonia. 



Felis puma pca7-so?ii Thomas. Coast of Santa Cruz, Patagonia. 



FELIS COUGUAR Kerr. Adirondack Cougar ; Panther. 



Fills co7tgiiar KV.KV., AnxrmX Kingdom, p. 151, 1792, 

 Felis pe7insvlvanica Link, Beitrage zur Naturgesch., 11, p. 90, 17^5. 

 Fclis co7icolor Merriam, Mammals of Adirondacks, pp. 29-39, 1882 (habits). 

 Felis ore(^07ie7tsis hippolestes Miller, Bull. N. Y. State Museum, No. 38, vol. 

 VI II, p. 124, 1900. 



Type locality. — Pennsylvania. 



Geographic dist7'ibiitio7i. — Adirondack Mountains, New York, 

 Green Mountains, Vermont,^ and until recently higher Alleghenies of 

 Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia, where a few may still 

 occur. 



Characters. — Size medium , head (apparently) disproportionately 

 small for size of body ; color dull fulvous ; skull smallest of the known 

 species. 



Color. — "Body and legs of a uniform fulvous or tawny hue . . . 

 Ears light-colored within, blackish behind. Belly pale reddish or 

 reddish white. Face sometimes with a uniform lighter tint than the 

 general hue of the body." — DeKay.'' 



Crajiial characters. — Skull smaller and less massive than in any 

 other North American species ; nasals broader and blunter posteriorly 

 than in hippolestes and aztecus., but very much smaller and narrower 



' Cougars are exceedingly rare in New England where, so far as now known, 

 thej are restricted to the Green Mountains of Vermont. Professor George H. 

 Perkins, of Burlington, Vt., writes me that panthers were killed in that state in 

 1870, 1875, 18S1, and 1894, and that hunters believe that a few still exist in the 

 Green Mountains. He tells me further that the one killed in 1S81 was shot in 

 Barnard, Vt., and was a very large animal; it is now in the state collection at 

 Montpelier. During the present fall (1891) according to a Brattleboro news- 

 paper, two men, while hunting ruffed grouse in the town of Andover, suddenly 

 came upon a panther into which they emptied several charges of shot, apparently 

 without serious result. 



^DeKay. Mammals of New York, p. 47, 1842. 



