WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS 15 



of the cat and had been afraid or unable to attack it; so 

 that as Collins the cow-puncher, who was a Southerner, 

 phrased it, " she just naturally stayed in the hole " until 

 some time during the night the cat went out and she fol- 

 lowed. When once hunters and hounds have come into 

 the land, it is evident that the bobcats which take refuge 

 in caves have a far better chance of surviving than those 

 which make their lairs in the open and go up trees. But 

 trees are sure havens against their wilderness foes. Goff 

 informed me that he once came in the snow to a place 

 where the tracks showed that some coyotes had put a 

 bobcat up a tree, and had finally abandoned the effort to 

 get at it. Any good fighting dog will kill a bobcat; 

 but an untrained dog, even of large size, will probably 

 fail, as the bobcat makes good use of both teeth and 

 claws. The cats we caught frequently left marks on some 

 of the pack. We found them very variable in size. My 

 two largest both of course males weighed respectively 

 thirty-one and thirty-nine pounds. The latter, Goff said, 

 was of exceptional size, and as large as any he had ever 

 killed. The full-grown females went down as low as 

 eighteen pounds, or even lower. 



When the bobcats were in the treetops we could get 

 up very close. They looked like large malevolent pussies. 

 I once heard one of them squall defiance when the dogs 

 tried to get it out of a hole. Ordinarily they confined 

 themselves to a low growling. Stewart and Goff went up 

 the trees with their cameras whenever we got a bobcat 

 in a favorable position, and endeavored to take its photo- 

 graph. Sometimes they were very successful. Although 



