34 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 



shore of the Father of Waters, whose current the 

 jaguar is quite competent to swim, if he likes. As 

 for the puma, he possesses the whole continent as 

 far north at least as the watershed of Hudson Bay, 

 in the east, while on the western coast he follows 

 the mountains to the middle of British Columbia. 

 Southward he is plentiful throughout the tropics, 

 and less so even to the Straits of Magellan. No 

 other kind of cat, not only, but no other sort of 

 land animal whatever (not domesticated) equals 

 this species in north and south range (100 de- 

 grees); and that implies that no other is called 

 upon to adapt itself to such a diversity of seasons, 

 climatic conditions, food, and competition. It has 

 to meet not only the cardinal contrasts of climate 

 between tropical and subarctic zones, but, as it is 

 widely distributed on both continents, it encounters 

 all the differences that can be found between life 

 in Canadian spruce-woods or on the high cordil- 

 leras from Alaska to Chile, and the moist, feverish 

 lowlands from the Mexican coasts to southern 

 Brazil. One would expect to see in such a species 

 the more so as the individual animals are not 

 far wanderers, but remarkably stationary in habi- 

 tat wide variations from the type; but, on the 

 contrary, few animals exhibit less diversity in size, 

 structure, or external appearance. 



A comparison of the puma with the jaguar is 

 highly interesting in respect to color as well as in 

 the matter of distribution. While the yellow hide 



