130 CENTRAL AMERICA. 



long claws so sharp. He was pulled to the 

 path side, and in a few hours the vultures 

 had cleaned his bones most thoroughly. A 

 few days after I put his bones into some 

 form, and they remained on the path side for 

 many days, until the cuyotes found them 

 and made no hones of them. 



Though I heard the puma lion crying al- 

 most every night in the forest close to my 

 rancho, and though the good dogs I had were 

 continually rushing into the covert after them, 

 this above-mentioned one was the only one 1 

 ever shot in that country. Their cry is not 

 like the roar of the true lion, or the roar of 

 the panther ; it is what a person might con- 

 ceive to issue from an enormously overgrown 

 torn cat, with several extra pairs of lungs. 

 I had no means of measuring the old one I 

 shot; he was about the height of a large 

 mastiff, but a great deal longer in the body. 



A puma will not attack a full-grown bull 

 or cow, unless he happens to catch one bogged 

 in Sipantano^ or slough, and then he does the 

 same as the condors of Chili do, who will very 

 soon despatch a bull in a deep bog, that pre- 

 vents resistance : he is very mischievous 

 amongst the calves, and even two-year-old 

 cattle. A stag has not the remotest chance 



