100 S1VRTINO ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE COUGAR AND LYNXES. 



The Cougar. — Variety of its Names. — Size, "Weight, Strength, Color, and 

 General Characteristics. — Its Peculiarities when treed. — How Farmers 

 kill it. — Anecdotes of its Courage. — A Fight with a Wolf and a Bear. 

 — Desperate Struggle between a Cougar and an Unarmed Man in Ore- 

 gon. — Two Kittens captured. — Death of the Dam. — A Wild Cougar 

 plays with a Man in Washington Territory. — His Fright and Escape. — 

 An Episode in Minnesota. — My First Cougar. — A Weird Funeral Cere- 

 mony among the Digger Indians. — Why the Californians are called Tar 

 Heads. — My next Capture, and another Form of an Indian Funeral. — 

 A Hunt in the Cascade Range. — Death of a Cougar. — My Companion 

 wounded. — Legend of an Enchanted Lake. — A Cougar cripples an In- 

 dian. — Dangerous Character of the Animal. — The best Time for hunt- 

 ing it. — A Night Hunt, and its serious Result. — Death of Two Cougars. 

 — Other Members of the Cat Family. — Difference between Lynxes and 

 true Cats. — How to distinguish them. — Lynx-hunts. — I kill Four in 

 one Month. — Characteristics of the Genus. — Lynx-hunting as a Sport. 



The cougar (Felis concolor) boasts a larger variety of 

 names than any animal on the continent, being known as 

 the puma, mountain lion, California lion, painter, and pan- 

 ther, besides the first mentioned ; and some persons, in 

 writing of sport in America, have made all these cogno- 

 mens into distinct animals, and have gone so far as to 

 give them different characteristics and varied degrees of 

 ferocity. 



The cougar is the largest of the Felidoe found in the 

 United States, except the jaguar, or Mexican tiger {Felis 

 on$a) ; but that is confined in its northern range to por- 

 tions of Texas, and is nowhere abundant, not even along 

 the Brazos River. Tlie former is quite common in the 

 wooded regions beyond the Rocky Mountains, and its 

 sharp, high screams in early morning frequently send the 

 blood bounding through the veins of the wanderer amidst 



