The Puma, or Lion of America. 43 
enemy.” The enemy is not often generous; but 
many gauchos have assured me, when speaking on 
this subject, that although they kill the puma readily 
to protect their domestic animals, they consider it 
an evil thing to take its life in desert places, where 
it is man’s only friend among the wild animals. 
When the hunter is accompanied by dogs, then 
the puma, instead of drooping and shedding tears, 
is roused to a sublime rage: its hair stands erect ; 
its eyes shine like balls of green flame ; it spits and 
snarls lke a furious tom cat. The hunter’s pre- 
sence seems at such times to be ignored altogether, 
its whole attention being given to the dogs and its 
rage directed against them. In Patagonia a sheep- 
farming Scotchman, with whom I spent some days, 
showed me the skulls of five pumas which he had 
shot in the vicinity of his ranche. One was of an 
exceptionally large individual, and I here relate 
what he told me of his encounter with this animal, 
as it shows just how the puma almost invariably 
behaves when attacked by man and dogs. He was 
out on foot with his flock, when the dogs discovered 
the animal concealed among the bushes. He had 
left his gun at home, and having no weapon, and 
finding that the dogs dared not attack it where it 
sat in a defiant attitude with its back against a 
thorny bush, he looked about and found a large dry 
stick, and going boldly up to it tried to stun it 
with a violent blow on the head. But though it 
never looked at him, its fiery eyes gazing steadily at 
the dogs all the time, he could not hit it, for with a 
quick side movement it avoided every blow. The 
small heed the puma paid him, and the apparent 
