54 THE PENNSYLVANIA LION OR PANTHER. 



"West Chester, Pa., Jan. 5, 1914. 



Dear jNIk. Shoemakei; : 



I have your very kind letter of January 2d. That 

 panther cry — I have often asked myself how I could 

 describe it and failed to satisfy the inquiry, though I 

 think I have at this very minute a somewhat clear 

 remembrance of it. It would not be an adequate 

 reply if I said it sounded like the wail of a child seek- 

 ing" something, a cry. distinct, half inquiry and half 

 in- temper. There was soniething human in it, though 

 unmistakably wild, clear and piercing. And yet I do 

 not know how to make a more satisfactory reply, ex- 

 cept to say that the cry seemed to be in all its tones 

 about a minute long. I heard it one evening in Treas- 

 ter Valley repeated so often that I could recognize it 

 as coming from an animal moving along the rocky 

 slope of the mountain where no child could have 

 been at that hour, and was told by those residents in 

 the region, 'Oh, it's the painter's cry.' It did not 

 seem to be unusual to them. That was about twenty 

 years ago. 



Cordially yours, 



(vSigned) J. T. Rothrock." 



Joseph H. Taylor, an able western writer on sport- 

 ing topics, accurately describes the panther's cry 

 which he heard during a flood at Lake Mandan, North 

 Dakota, in March. ISSO. 



