32 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



for instance will readily attack a disabled or 

 sleeping man when pressed by hunger ; and when 

 driven to desperation no animal is too small or too 

 feeble to make a show of resistance. In such a case 

 "even the armadillo defends itself," as the gaucho 

 proverb says. Besides, the conclusion is in contra- 

 diction to many other well-known facts. Putting 

 aside the puma's passivity in the presence of man, 

 it is a bold hunter that invariably prefers large to 

 small game ; in desert places killing peccary, tapir, 

 ostrich, deer, huanaco, &c., all powerful, well-armed, 

 or swift animals. Huanaco skeletons seen in 

 Patagonia almost invariably have the neck dis- 

 located, showing that the puma was the executioner. 

 Those only who have hunted the huanaco on the 

 sterile plains and mountains it inhabits know how 

 wary, keen-scented, and fleet of foot it is. I 

 once spent several weeks with a surveying party 

 in a district where pumas were very abundant, and 

 saw not less than half a dozen deer every day, 

 freshly killed in most cases, and all with dislocated 

 necks. Where prey is scarce and difficult to capture, 

 the puma, after satisfying its hunger, invariably 

 conceals the animal it has killed, covering it over 

 carefully with grass and brushwood ; these deer, 

 however, had all been left exposed to the caracaras 

 and foxes after a portion of the breast had been 

 eaten, and in many cases the flesh had not been 

 touched, the captor having satisfied itself with 

 sucking the blood. It struck me very forcibly that 

 the puma of the desert pampas is, among mammals, 

 like the peregrine falcon of the same district among 

 birds ; for there this wide-ranging raptor only 



