The Puma, or Lion of America. 43 



enemy." The enemy is not often generous ; but 

 many gauchos have assured me, when speaking on 

 this subject, that although they kill the puma readily 

 to protect their domestic animals, they consider it 

 an evil thing to take its life in desert places, where 

 it is man's only friend among the wild animals. 



When the hunter is accompanied by dogs, then 

 the puma, instead of drooping and shedding tears, 

 is roused to a sublime rage : its hair stands erect ; 

 its eyes shine like balls of green flame ; it spits and 

 snarls like a furious torn cat. The hunter's pre- 

 sence seems at such times to be ignored altogether, 

 its whole attention being given to the dogs and its 

 rage directed against them. In Patagonia a sheep- 

 farming Scotchman, with whom I spent some days, 

 showed me the skulls of five pumas which he had 

 shot in the vicinity of his ranche. One was of an 

 exceptionally large individual, and I here relate 

 what he told me of his encounter with this animal, 

 as it shows just how the puma almost invariably 

 behaves when attacked by man and dogs. He was 

 out on foot with his flock, when the dogs discovered 

 the animal concealed among the bushes. He had 

 left his gun at home, and having no weapon, and 

 finding that the dogs dared not attack it where it 

 sat in a defiant attitude with its back against a 

 thorny bush, he looked about and found a large dry 

 stick, and going boldly up to it tried to stun it 

 with a violent blow on the head. But though it 

 never looked at him, its fiery eyes gazing steadily at 

 the dogs all the time, he could not hit it, for with a 

 quick side movement it avoided every blow. The 

 small heed the puma paid him, and the apparent 



