34 The Naturalist in La Plata. 
already been driven out by man. My own ex- 
perience is that on the desert pampas wild horses 
are exceedingly scarce, and from all accounts it 
is the same throughout Patagonia. 
Next to horse-flesh sheep is preferred, and where 
the puma can come ata flock, he will not trouble 
himself to attack horned cattle. In Patagonia 
especially [ found this to be the case. I resided 
for some time at an estancia close to the town of 
El Carmen, on the Rio Negro, which during my 
stay was infested by a very bold and cunning 
puma. To protect the sheep from his attacks an 
enclosure was made of upright willow-poles fifteen 
feet long, while the gate, by which he would have 
to enter, was close to the house and nearly six 
feet high. In spite of the difficulties thus put in 
the way, and of the presence of several large dogs, 
also of the watch we kept in the hope of shooting 
him, every cloudy night he came, and after killing 
one or more sheep got safely away. One dark 
night he killed four sheep; I detected him in the 
act, and going up to the gate, was trying to make 
out his invisible form in the gloom as he flitted 
about knocking the sheep over, when suddenly he 
leaped clear over my head and made his escape, 
the bullets I sent after him in the dark failing to 
hit him. Yet at this place twelve or fourteen calves, 
belonging to the milch cows, were every night shut 
into a small brushwood pen, at a distance from the 
house where the enemy could easily have destroyed 
every one of them. When I expressed surprise at 
this arrangement, the owner said that the puma was 
not fond of calves’ flesh, and came only for the 
