ZOOLOGY, ETC. 279 
These notes were suggested by my friend, Professor Dyche, asking if I had 
ever heard a panther ‘‘scream,”’ stating that in his large experience as a hunter 
he had never met a man who had, and regarded the ‘‘scream’’ asamyth. I can 
answer most emphatically that I have. 
In January, 1868, during extreme cold and heavy snow, I was camped, in the 
winter, near the mouth of Turkey creek, on the Cimarron river. About ten 
o’clock one night two panthers came close to the camp, less than 100 yards, and, 
lifting up their voices, let loose the most unearthly, blood-curdling screams it 
Was ever my good fortune to hear. Lobo, the big buffalo wolf, has a deep, pro- 
found, musical howl, which can be heard for miles over the silent, frozen plains; 
and their music has lulled me to sleep as I lay wrapped in my blankets in the 
snow: but the unearthly scream of a panther close at hand will almost freeze 
the blood in one’s veins, and for an instant paralyze almost any form of man or 
beast. My horses and mules tied to the wagon usually paid no attention to wild 
animals; but on this occasion they trembled like a leaf. Some Indian women 
and children were sitting around their camp-fires. They screamed and ran into 
their lodges. The few Indian men seized their weapons. I distinctly remember 
being astonished myself. 
The next morning it was snowing. I took my trusty friend and companion, 
my rifle, and waded through the snow to a dense body of post-oak timber, half a 
mile distant. Underneath the interlocking branches of the timber was a thicket 
of brush and greenbriers. I soon found the fresh tracks of two large panthers 
and followed their tracks through and under the brush and vines and between 
the tree trunks for an hour, always close to them, sometimes within two rods. I 
could not see them, as the falling snow covered the brush and vines, completely 
shutting out the sight of anything more than a rod distant. They could easily 
have sprung upon me from either side or behind. I failed to get sight of them. 
In all my experience, I never knew any wild animal to attack a person unless 
wounded and crowded upon. Panthers frequently killed and ate Indians’ horses 
and the Indians hunted and killed them with the aid of dogs. 
A panther’s scream heard in the wilderness on a still night is an experience 
never to be forgotten. The memory of it will stay with one to the end. 
Mr. William Matthews, of Wichita, my former partner on the plains and the 
original ‘‘ Buffalo Bill,’’ who spent more than twenty years on the plains and 
mountains as hunter, trapper, guide, scout, and trader, from the head waters of 
the Missouri river to the Gulf, commencing in 1848, tells me that he has killed 
twenty or thirty of the animals; that he has often heard them scream, and de- 
scribes it as similar to my experience. He says that they have other tones of 
voice to suit the occasion, as other cats have, and that a mountain lion is a dis- 
tinct variety of Felis concolor —has a short body, and heavy, stout legs, while 
a panther has a long body and shorter, lighter limbs. He says that both varie- 
ties were more numerous in the vicinity of the Wichita mountains than in any 
other locality. He never knew one to attack a person. 
