The Cougar. 339 



mightiest hunter America has ever seen, informs me that 

 he has killed with his pack some sixteen cougars, during 

 the fifty years he has hunted in South Carolina and Mis- 

 sissippi. I believe they were all killed in the latter State. 

 General Hampton's hunting has been chiefly for bear and 

 deer, though his pack also follows the lynx and the gray 

 fox ; and, of course, if good fortune throws either a wolf 

 or a cougar in his way it is followed as the game of all 

 others. All the cougars he killed were either treed or 

 brought to bay in a canebrake by the hounds ; and they 

 often handled the pack very roughly in the death struggle. 

 He found them much more dangerous antagonists than 

 the black bear when assailed with the hunting knife, a 

 weapon of which he was very fond. However, if his pack 

 had held a few very large, savage dogs, put in purely for 

 fighting when the quarry was at bay, I think the danger 

 would have been minimized. 



General Hampton followed his game on horseback ; 

 but in following the cougar with dogs this is by no means 

 always necessary. Thus Col. Cecil Clay, of Washington, 

 killed a cougar in West Virginia, on foot with only three 

 or four hounds. The dogs took the cold trail, and he had 

 to run many miles over the rough, forest-clad mountains 

 after them. Finally they drove the cougar up a tree ; 

 where he found it, standing among the branches, in a half- 

 erect position, its hind-feet on one limb and its fore-feet 

 on another, while it glared down at the dogs, and switched 

 its tail from side to side. He shot it through both shoul- 

 ders, and down it came in a heap, whereupon the dogs 

 jumped in and worried it, for its fore-legs were useless, 



