110 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



a man on foot found a difficulty in overtaking it. Should 

 it commit depredations on a farm-yard, the farmer gen- 

 erally starts in pursuit with dogs and guns, or spreads 

 strychnine over a piece of meat and places it in a spot 

 where it will prove most effective. Numbers are destroy- 

 ed annually by this means in the West, and, as a result, 

 they are becoming scarcer in certain sections. When 

 pursued, or startled on the ground, the cougar bounds 

 for the densest thicket, or scrambles up the first conven- 

 ient tree and conceals itself amidst the branches. Extend- 

 ing itself on a bough, it is sometimes difficult to find if 

 it remains quiet; but it has a habit of swinging its tail 

 from side to side, and of purring loudly if enemies ap- 

 proach its retreat, and these cause it to be detected when 

 it otherwise would not. 



Its courage is sufficiently great to induce it to face any 

 foe, from bear to man, in a case of emergency. I heard 

 an old hunter say that he once saw a fight between a black 

 bear and a cougar, and that the latter killed its adversary 

 in less than twenty minutes, by leaping on its neck and 

 cutting the spinal cord with its lance -like teeth. Bruin 

 did not die, however, without a severe struggle, and inflict- 

 ing such injuries on the other that it would undoubtedly 

 have died of its wounds had the hunter not shot it as it 

 was crawling into the shrubbery. On examining it, he 

 found that one of its hind-legs was broken, and the flesh 

 torn off by a sweeping blow of the bear's paw, and that 

 it also had a severe wound in the neck. The cougar was 

 evidently the aggressor in this case, and was incited to 

 the combat either by hunger or a desire to defend its 

 young, as he found that it was a large female whose teats 

 were full of milk. 



He saw, on another occasion, a fight between a cougar 

 and a wolf, and, according to his statement, it \vas one 

 worth beholding, as they tumbled over and over each oth- 

 er, and caused the leaves to fly about as wildly as if two 

 moose were engaged in a deadly contest. Knowing which 

 one would win, he loaded his gun with buckshot, and, ap- 



