42 HUNTING AND FISHING IN FLORIDA. 



when it can catch them. They hunt as a rule at night ; but on cool 

 and cloudy days or after a rain they often move about in the day- 

 time. If a panther kills a deer he returns to it the second night, but 

 rarely the third night, and much of the animal is often left uneaten. 

 In the old days it was b}^ no means uncommon to tind a dead deer 

 in the woods with the evidence about it of having been killed and 

 partly eaten by a panther. 



The track made by a panther somewhat resembles that of a hound, 

 but it is larger, and the ball of the foot is relatively much larger ; the 

 toe marks are in front and do not show any mark of a claw unless 

 the animal is jumping. 



We found the fresh trails of seven panthers in one week within 

 thii'ty miles of Lake Worth. The soft foot of this great cat leaves 

 very little trail except in mud or soft sand. In traveling over a piece 

 of sandy soil the tracks are almost invisible where those of a dog 

 can be plainly seen. 



It was our usual custom to start out at daylight and allow the 

 hounds to run about as they pleased as we rode slowly through the 

 woods. Every few minutes a hound would start off on a fresh trail 

 of some animal, and we would have to call in the other dogs and 

 •" slow trail '' it until we came to a place where the ground was clear 

 and soft enou^rh for us to see the tracks and learn what it was they 

 were after. Oftentimes it would be a deer or cat, and we could 

 sometimes tell what it was by watching the actions of the dog. If 

 the trail was very winding and wandered in and out through a piece 

 of scrub, turning this w^ay and that, we were pretty certain it was 

 not a panther, for they usually follow a straight course, turning but 

 little from right to left. 



In crossing a piece of open land, a panther walks directly across, 

 while a deer would make a more or less irregular trail. Then again, 

 if a hound following a trail smells along the top of an old log, we 

 know very well that it is not a deer that has walked along the log, 

 but either a wildcat or a panther. 



Of course if we found it was not a panther which the dogs were 

 trailing we called them off and again continued our search. About 



