266 Wild Beasts 



form into rings to defend themselves. Captain Flack (" A 

 Hunter's Experience in the Southern States of America") 

 relates an incident in which his horse was stalked by a 

 cougar. S. S. Hill ("Travels in Peru and Mexico") in- 

 forms us that " this animal always flies at the sight of 

 man." G. W. Webber ("The Hunter Naturalist") de- 

 clares that he " knows hundreds of well-authenticated 

 instances in which the cougar or panther attacked the 

 early hunters — springing suddenly upon them from an 

 ambush." Many writers affirm that calves, colts, sheep, 

 goats, swine, are the only domestic animals ever preyed 

 upon, and a deer the largest wild creature which is de- 

 stroyed. But a traveller like Charles Darwin was certain 

 to observe that, although in La Plata " cougars seldom 

 assault cattle or horses, and most rarely man," living 

 principally on ostriches, deer, bizcacha, etc., in Chile, they 

 killed all those animals they are said never to touch, in- 

 cluding man. 



Moreover, we read dogmatic assertions to the effect that 

 pumas always leap on their victims from behind, and break 

 their necks by bending back the head. Another authority 

 decides that this is so far from being the case that death 

 commonly arises from dislocation caused by a blow with 

 the paw ; still another insists that the vertebrae are not dis- 

 jointed at all, but bitten through, which is again denied by 

 those who are convinced that cougars invariably kill their 

 prey by cutting the throat. Much the same statements are 

 made about everything the beast does or is said to do, and 

 the conclusion, which one familiar with this kind of litera- 

 ture comes to, is that these conflicting statements are not 



