THE CAT TRIBE 



5 1 



was scarce, declared that 4,000 jaguars were killed annually, and 2,000 skins exported from 

 Buenos Ayres alone. It was clearly common on the Pampas in his day, and made as great 

 havoc among the cattle and horses as it does to-day. 



The Puma 



The PUMA is a far more interesting creature. It is found from the mountains in Montana, 

 next the Canadian boundary, to the south of Patagonia. Many stories of its ferocity may 

 ha\e some foundation; but the writer believes there is no recorded instance of the northern 

 puma attacking man unprovoked, though in the few places where it now survives it kills cattle- 

 calves and colts. It is relentlessly hunted with dogs, treed, and shot. As to the puma of the 



Photo by Otlomar jfnlchutx] 



[Birlin 



FEMALE PUMA 



This shoivs a puma alert and -vigilant, ivith ears pricked forward 



southern plains and central forests, the natives, whether Indians or Gauchos, agree with the 

 belief, steadily handed down from the days of the first Spanish conquest, that the puma is the 

 one wild cat which is naturally friendly to man. The old Spaniards called it amigo del Cristiano 

 (the Christian's friend) ; and Mr. Hudson, in " The Naturalist in La Plata," gives much evidence 

 of this most curious and interesting tendency : " It is notorious that where the puma is the only 

 large beast of prey it is perfectly safe for a small child to go out and sleep on the plain. . . . 

 The puma is always at heart a kitten, taking unmeasured delight in its frolics; and when, 

 as often happens, one lives alone in the desert, it will amuse itself for hours fighting mock bat 

 ties or playing hide-and-seek with imaginary companions, or lying in wait and putting all its 

 wonderful strategy in practice to capture a passing butterfly." From Azara downwards these 

 stories have been told too often not to be largely true ; and in old natural histories, whose 



