MAMMALS. 79 



Once seen, there can be no mistaking the species, for large size, 

 long ears, and a big white puffy tail are conspicuous characters, to 

 be recognized almost as far away as the white rump of the antelope. 

 The animals are strictly prairie dwellers and are generally seen as 

 they bound out of their forms in the grass where they sit during most 

 of the day. Their long leaps above the prairie grass are almost as 

 startling as the white flashes of the white-tail deer in flight, and their 

 speed is perhaps exceeded only by that of the antelope and grey- 

 hound. As game animals they afford good sport in shooting, and 

 their meat is considered excellent. 



Their food in sunmier is mainly of grass and the leaves of tender 

 prairie ]ilants or au}^ growing grain, clover, or alfalfa that may be 

 found on farms, while in winter it is chiefly of twigs, bark, and buds. 

 In farming sections jack rabbits often do some mischief during the 

 winter season in cutting off' young fruit trees and bushes, but over 

 most of their range they are a harmless and valuable game animal. 



Order CARNIVORA: Flesh Eaters. 



Family FELID^: Cats. 



Mountain Lion : Fells hippolestes Merriam. — The northern 

 pumas, cougars, or mountain lions are still common on the west 

 slope of the mountains in Glacier Park where the dense forest and 

 abundance of deer offer them miusual advantages in safe cover and 

 ample food supply. On the east slope they are comparatively scarce, 

 and I have only one definite record of tracks seen, one at Iceberg 

 Lake in Xovember, 1907, by Donald H. Stevenson. In many years' 

 residence in the park he found no other tracks on the east slope, but 

 found them common on the west, and reported about 24 lions 

 taken each year. In 1917, Park Ranger Gibb told me of 11 killed 

 by one hunter in the North Fork Valley during the preceding win- 

 ter. Apparently they are still almost as numerous as they were in 

 1895, when I first went through the park region. At that time they 

 were common all along the west slope of the park, and at one of my 

 camps just west of the park I had the unusual pleasure of hearing 

 one's wild cry in the mountains at night. It was not the childlike 

 scream of the young horned owl, so often attributed to mountain 

 lions, but a long, hoarse woh-u-p-o-u somewhat suggesting the roar 

 of a lion, but more like the exaggerated caterwauling of the back 

 yard tomcat in its deepest and most pensive mood. This prolonged 

 call was repeated at intervals of about one minute as the animal 

 passed through the forest not far from camp, and could be heard 

 for a long distance in the still night. On only two other occasions 

 have I heard this cry in the woods, and once in the National Zoo- 



51140°— 18 7 



