284 Field Museum of Natural History — Zoology, Vol. XL 



idently aware of our visit and suspicious of danger. The next morning, 

 the tracks being quite fresh, he was run down and treed by the dogs in 

 less than half an hour. This animal was a good-sized male and measured 

 seven feet six inches from nose to tip of tail, and is the largest Panther 

 I have killed in Florida, although the Indians claim they occa- 

 sionally grow somewhat larger. I am inclined to believe, however, 

 that Panthers rarely exceed eight feet in length in Florida, or anywhere 

 else in the United States. A full grown male Florida Panther will 



Young Florida Panther. 



weigh from 125 to 150 pounds, but I have seen adult females of that 

 form which were slightly less than six feet in length and weighed about 

 80 pounds. The western form averages larger, males 160 to 170 pounds 

 in weight being not uncommon. In a series of specimens from Colorado 

 recorded by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt* the lengths of three males 

 are given as 7 feet 6 inches, 7 feet 8 inches and 8 feet, the latter being 

 an unusually large animal which weighed 227 pounds. 



The question as to how far a Panther can spring at a single leap has 

 often been discussed. On one occasion a female chased by hounds was 

 seen by one of my men to leap across a creek which was afterward 

 measured and the width from bank to bank was found to be 25 feet. 

 This seemed to me to be a very good leap at the time, but it is insignif- 

 icant when compared with those described by Dr. Merriam, who says, 

 "On one occasion Mr. Sheppard measured a leap, over snow, of nearly 



* Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, 1908, p. 31. 



