The Puma, or Lion of America. 33 



attacks comparatively large birds, and, after fastidi- 

 ously picking a meal from the flesh of the head and 

 neck, abandons the untouched body to the polybori 

 and other hawks of the more ignoble sort. 



In pastoral districts the puma is very destructive 

 to the larger domestic animals, and has an extra- 

 ordinary fondness for horseflesh. This was first 

 noticed by Molina, whose Natural History of Chili 

 was written a century and a half ago. In Patagonia 

 I heard on all sides that it was extremely difficult 

 to breed horses, as the colts were mostly killed by 

 the pumas. A native told me that on one occasion, 

 while driving his horses home through the thicket, a 

 puma sprang out of the bushes on to a colt following 

 behind the troop, killing it before his eyes and not 

 more than six yards from his horse's head. In this 

 instance, my informant said, the puma alighted 

 directly on the colt's back, with one fore foot 

 grasping its bosom, while with the other it seized 

 the head, and, giving it a violent wrench, dislocated 

 the neck. The colt fell to the earth as if shot, and 

 he affirmed that it was dead before it touched the 

 ground. 



Naturalists have thought it strange that the 

 horse, once common throughout America, should 

 have become extinct over a continent apparently so 

 well suited to it and where it now multiplies so 

 greatly. As a fact wherever pumas abound the 

 wild horse of the present time, introduced from 

 Europe, can hardly maintain its existence. Formerly 

 in many places horses ran wild and multiplied to an 

 amazing extent, but this happened, I believe, only 

 in districts where the puma was scarce or had 



