WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS 13 



popular belief, the winter is in many places a time of 

 plenty for carnivorous wild beasts. In this place, for 

 instance, the abundance of deer and rabbits made good 

 hunting for both cougar and bobcat, and all those we 

 killed were as fat as possible, and in consequence weighed 

 more than their inches promised. The bobcats are very 

 fond of prairie dogs, and haunt the dog towns as soon 

 as spring comes and the inhabitants emerge from their 

 hibernation. They sometimes pounce on higher game. 

 We came upon an eight months' fawn very nearly a 

 yearling which had been killed by a big male bobcat; 

 and Judge Foreman informed me that near his ranch, 

 a few years previously, an exceptionally large bobcat had 

 killed a yearling doe. Bobcats will also take lambs and 

 young pigs, and if the chance occurs will readily seize 

 their small kinsman, the house cat. 



Bobcats are very fond of lurking round prairie-dog 

 towns as soon as the prairie dogs come out in spring. 

 In this part of Colorado, by the way, the prairie dogs 

 were of an entirely different species from the common 

 kind of the plains east of the Rockies. 



We found that the bobcats sometimes made their lairs 

 along the rocky ledges or in holes in the cut banks, and 

 sometimes in thickets, prowling about during the night, 

 and now and then even during the day. We never chased 

 them unless the dogs happened to run across them by 

 accident when questing for cougar, or when we were re- 

 turning home after a day when we had failed to find 

 cougar. Usually the cat gave a good run, occasionally 

 throwing out the dogs by doubling or jack-knifing. Two 



