84 



PUMAS AND JAGUARS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



No one can have read Captain Mayne Eeid's stories about 

 America without being struck by the part played in them 

 by an animal called the 'painter,' which is of a tawny 

 colour, with a black stripe down its back. Now the 

 1 painter ' is really the panther, and the panther is 

 the creature that we call the puma, which, next to the 

 jaguar, is the biggest of all the Amei'ican cats, and has 

 a wider range than any other mammal. The puma 

 is to be met with in British Columbia, or in the Adiron- 

 dack mountains not far from New York State ; it is to 

 be seen in the hot unhealtlry swamps that lie along 

 the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico ; it lies in 

 wait for its prey in the river forests of the Amazon and 

 the Orinoco ; it tracks the wild and cunning huanaco 

 ten thousand feet high on the Andes, and it is the 

 dreaded enemy of colts and sheep on the cattle runs of 

 the Argentine Republic. With wonderful skill it makes 

 the best of circumstances ; if horses, its favourite food, 

 are not to be had, it puts up with ostriches ; if it happens 

 to live in Mexico, or Arizona, it makes its dinner off wild 

 turkeys ; further north still, the puma will be content 

 with porcupines or even snails, while if its chosen haunts 

 along the river banks of the Amazon or the Orinoco are 

 overwhelmed by a sudden inundation, it takes to the trees 

 and feasts upon monkeys. 



As sometimes occurs in families, the puma has a 

 particular hatred for its cousin the jaguar, and seldom 



