600 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



The Puma occurs throughout Ceutral America* and in all parts of 

 South America to the Straits of Magellan. f 



The first mention of the Puma appears to be the remark in the letter 

 of Columbus regarding his fourth voyage in 1502. In the narrative of 

 his exploration of the coast of Honduras and Nicaragua he writes: 

 " I saw some very large fowls (the feathers of which resemble wool), 

 lions [leones], stags, fallow-deer, and birds.| 



There are also references to the occurrence of the Puma in North 

 America of very early date in the narratives of Laudonniere, Hariot, 

 Coronado, Hawkins || and others. 



The Puma, regarded as a species, possesses in a remarkable degree 

 the power of adapting himself to varied surroundings. He endures 

 severe cold during the winter in the Adirondack Mountains § and other 

 parts of our northern frontier, and tracks his prey in the snow. He is 

 equally at home in the hot swamps and canebrakes along the river- 

 courses of our southern States.^] In South America he inhabits the 

 treeless, grass-covered pampas as well as the forests.** In the Rocky 

 Mountains, as I am informed by Mr. William T. Hornaday, he ascends 

 to thehigh altitudes in which the mountain sheep are found. Mr. Living- 

 ston Stoue saw tracks of the Puma on the summit of Mount Persephone 

 in California, at an elevation of 3,000 feet.tt Similarly, Darwin states 

 that he saw the footprints of the Puma on the cordillera of central 

 Chili, at an elevation of at least 10,000 feet4J According to Tschudi, 



* For list of localities see Alston in Godman &.Salvin's, Biologia Centrali-Ameri- 

 cana, Mammalia, 1879-1882. 



t Burmeister, Description Physique de la Re"publiqne Argentine, in, 1879, pp. 

 130-132. 



t Haklnyt Soc, II, 1847, p. 193. 



This letter was written in Jamaica, 1503, and according to R. H. Major appears to 

 have been first published in Venice in 1505, although Pinelo and Ferdinando Colum- 

 bus asserted that it was published elsewhere in Spauish as well. 



|| Mexico.—'' Here are many sorts of beasts, as Beares, Tigers, Lions, Porkespicks," 

 etc. Coronado, Relation of Mexico, 1540. (Hakluyt's Collection of Voyages, in, 

 1810, p. 369.) 



Florida. — " It is thought that there are lions and tygres as well as unicornes ; lions 

 especially; if it be true that is sayd, of the enmity betweene them and the uuicornes; 

 for there is no beast but hath his enemy, as the cony tbe polecat, a sheepe the woolfe, 

 the elephant the rinoceros; and so of other beasts the like : insomuch that whereas 

 the one is, the other can not be missing." (John Hawkins, First Voyage to the West 

 Indies, 1562, 1. e., p. 616.) 



Laudonniere mentions "a certaine kinde of beast that dift'ereth from the Lyon of 

 Africa." (Four Voyages by Certain French Captains into Florida (1561-1565), 1. c, 

 p. 369.) 



Virginia. — "The inhabitants sometime kill the Lion, and eat him." Thos. Hariot, 

 "A briefeand true report of the new found land of Virginia " (1587). (L. c, p. 333.) 



§ See Dr. C. H. Merriam, Trans. Liunean Soc, New York, I, 1882, p. 32. 



If Audubon and Bachman, Quadrupeds of North America, n, 1851, p. 312. 



** Azara, Qnadriipedos del Paraguay, i, 1802, p. 120. 



HAmer. Naturalist, xvn, 1883, p. 1183. 



\\ Voyage of the Beagle, p. 269. 



