278 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
I saw them in 1859 in the heart of the buffalo range, and every year since. 
They were more plentiful along the southern border of the state and in the In- 
dian territory, where shelter was better. On account of their many enemies— 
wildcats sneaking upon them both night and day, coyotes and skunks destroy- 
ing their nests, hawks watching for them, and the terrific fires which sometimes 
swept through the thickets in which they lived, blizzards burying them deep in 
the crusted snow, they could not exist except in sheltered thickets. They were 
very wild, always flying when approached. Ido not remember of seeing one on 
the ground, and I noticed that they were considerably smaller than the quails of 
Iowa. 
In the same localities were considerable numbers of prairie-hens and sharp- 
tailed grouse. 
30b-whites rapidly increased with the settlement of the country. Whether 
they are descended from the original stock of the country I cannot say; but, from 
the fact that our quails are considerably smaller than the Iowa bird, I* think 
most of them are. 
FELIS CONCOLOR. 
BY J. R. MEAD, WICHITA. 
Read December 30, 1898. 
Felis concolor, locally known as mountain lion, panther, cougar, puma, 
and perhaps other names, was occasionally found in central Kaneas in its first 
settlement; was common along the southern line of the state, yet more common 
in the Indian territory, now known as Oklahoma. Its habitat was along the 
timbered streams and the prairies and hills adjacent. 
In the fall of 1859 the writer noticed skeletons of buffalo calves, some recently 
killed and partly eaten, in a heavily timbered bend of the Solomon river a few 
miles above its mouth. Later, the Sac and Fox Indians on their annual fall 
hunt camped in that bend, and with the aid of their dogs killed an immense 
panther. I did not measure the skin, but it was the largest of many that the 
writer obtained from the Indians in subsequent years. In 1865 the writer saw 
one on the White Water in Butler county, close to Mean’s ranch, where Towanda 
now stands. It came out of the tall grass, close to where my children were play- 
ing in the road, and leisurely bounded along to the bluff to the east. 
In the winter of 1864 the writer rode almost onto a very large male lion lying 
at length upon the prairie some three miles south of the junction of the Medicine 
Lodge and Salt Fork rivers, near the great salt plain. His color harmonized so 
completely with the dead, brown buffalo-grass that he was not observed until I 
was almost onto him. He was not disposed to move from his position, and not 
having my rifle with me I rode around him at a distance of fifty feet and talked 
to him, but could not induce him to move, except his eyes and head, which fol- 
lowed my every movement. A bunch of wild horses near by in a ravine may have 
been his quest. 1 rode away, leaving him to his meditations. 
In March, 1808, near a spring surrounded by trees, south of the Canadian 
river, I saw the skeletons of seven antlered deer within a radius of 200 feet. 
They had been food for panthers, I suppose. 
Deer were their principal food, springing upon them from a tree over a trail ; 
or, more frequently, still-hunting them—sneaking upon them in the grass as a 
cat does a mouse. We once found a deer freshly killed and covered with leaves, 
its neck bitten through and skin torn by sharp claws—cached for a future meal. 
