264 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA [No. 55 



lion. The estimate that has been sometimes made of 50 deer a year 

 to each mountain lion is undoubtedly far too small except in a 

 country where deer are scarce and it is necessary for the animals to 

 consume each kill entirely and help out its menu with stock and small 

 game. A hundred deer a year to each lion would seem more nearly 

 the probable destruction of these game animals. If deer are abundant 

 domestic stock is usually not seriously molested, except colts, which 

 are often killed in preference to deer. Calves, pigs, and sheep are 

 taken wherever they are available, and in a district where game is 

 scarce and domestic stock is common the financial losses caused by 

 even a few mountain lions are intolerable. For this reason it has 

 been found good economy to employ experienced mountain-lion 

 trappers and hunters to destroy as many of the animals as possible. 

 At the present time the mountain lions have been so reduced over 

 most of Oregon that they are no longer a serious menace to livestock 

 industries. 



Generally the cougars are cowardly and much afraid of man, but 

 there are many authentic cases of their voluntarily attacking men 

 and children. A man was attacked by one in 1883 near Mount Hood 

 (Anonymous, 1884, p. 1161). 



The Oregon Sportsman gives credence to an account of one that 

 attacked a little girl in Curry County and was killed as it sprang 

 at her mother, who had come to the rescue (Oreg. Sportsman 4: 61, 

 1916). 



More recently, in December 1924, a 13-year-old boy was killed and 

 partly eaten by a mountain lion in Okanogan County, Wash., and the 

 facts fully verified and widely published at the time (Finley, 1985). 



FELIS CONCOLOR HIPPOLESTES MERRIAM 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN COUGAR ; MOUNTAIN LION ; PANTHER ; TO-QUA-TO-HOO-OO of the 



Piute 



Fells Mppolestes Merriam, Biol. Soc. Wash. Proc. 11: 219, 1897. 



Type. Collected in Wind River Mountains, Fremont County, Wyo., by John 

 Burlingame, November 1892. 



General characters. Largest of the cougar group; dull tawny with less 

 black above and more white below than in oregonensis. Upper parts, including 

 top of tail, dull tawny ; tip of tail, back of ears, and spot on each side of nose, 

 black; lower parts whitish on chin, breast, and back part of belly, the tawny 

 reaching across throat and sometimes middle of belly. 



Measurements. A large male measured in Colorado by Theodore Roosevelt 

 was 8 feet from tip of nose to tip of tail, and weighed 227 pounds, and a large 

 female measured 6 feet 9 inches and weighed 124 pounds. 



Distribution and habitat. These large, dull-colored mountain 

 lions range over the Eocky Mountain region from northern New 

 Mexico to Montana and western Idaho, and probably over eastern 

 Oregon, although there are no specimens from the State east of the 

 Cascades (fig. 59). Hunter's skins seen in the Blue Mountains were 

 certainly not of the dark west-coast form. There are records from 

 many localities in the Blue Mountains and from the Steens and 

 Mahogany Mountains, but apparently none from the open-plains 

 country. The animals inhabit mainly forested country or canyons 

 and cliffs where there is cover and concealment for them as well as 

 for the large game animals on which they feed. 





