CHAPTER XVI. 



THE COUGAR. 



NO animal of the chase is so difficult to kill by fair 

 still-hunting as the cougar that beast of many 

 names, known in the East as panther and painter, 

 in the West as mountain lion, in the Southwest as Mexi- 

 can lion, and in the southern continent as lion and puma. 

 Without hounds its pursuit is so uncertain that from 

 the still-hunter's standpoint it hardly deserves to rank as 

 game at all though, by the way, it is itself a more skil- 

 ful still-hunter than any human rival. It prefers to move 

 abroad by night or at dusk ; and in the daytime usually 

 lies hid in some cave or tangled thicket where it is abso- 

 lutely impossible even to stumble on it by chance. It is 

 a beast of stealth and rapine ; its great, velvet paws, never 

 make a sound, and it is always on the watch whether for 

 prey or for enemies, while it rarely leaves shelter even 

 when it thinks itself safe. Its soft, leisurely movements 

 and uniformity of color make it difficult to discover at 

 best, and its extreme watchfulness helps it ; but it is 

 the cougar's reluctance to leave cover at any time, its 

 habit of slinking off through the brush, instead of running 



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