THE PUMA 287 



time I was an inmate in Mr. Corfield's house, whose kindness 

 to me I do not know how to express. 



I will here add a few observations on some of the animals 

 and birds of Chile. 1 he Puma, or South American Lion, is 

 not uncommon. This animal has a wide geographical range ; 

 being found from the equatorial forests, throughout the deserts 

 of Patagonia, as far south as the damp and cold latitudes (53° 

 to 54°) of Tierra del Fuego. I have seen its footsteps in the 

 Cordillera of central Chile, at an elevation of at least 10,000 

 feet. In La Plata the puma preys chiefly on deer, ostriches, 

 bizcacha, and other small quadrupeds ; it there seldom attacks 

 cattle or horses, and most rarely man. In Chile, however, it 

 destroys many young horses and cattle, owing probably to the 

 scarcity of other quadrupeds : I heard, likewise, of two men and 

 a woman who had been thus killed. It is asserted that the 

 puma always kills its prey by springing on the shoulders, and 

 then drawing back the head with one of its paws, until the 

 vertebrae break : I have seen in Patagonia the skeletons of 

 guanacos, with their necks thus dislocated. 



The puma, after eating its fill, covers the carcass with many 

 large bushes, and lies down to watch it. 1 his habit is often 

 the cause of its being discovered ; for the condors wheeling in 

 the air, every now and then descend to partake of the feast, 

 and being angrily driven away, rise all together on the wing. 

 The Chileno Guaso then knows there is a lion watching his 

 prey — the word is given — and men and dogs hurry to the 

 chase. Sir F. Head says that a Gaucho in the Pampas, upon 

 merely seeing some condors wheehng in the air, cried "A lion!" 

 I could never mj^self meet with any one who pretended to 

 such powers of discrimination. It is asserted that if a puma 

 has once been betrayed by thus watching the carcass, and has 

 then been hunted, it never resumes this habit ; but that having 

 gorged itself, it wanders far away. The puma is easily killed. 

 In an open country it is first entangled with the bolas, then 

 lazoed, and dragged along the ground till rendered insensible. 

 At Tandecl (south of the Plata) I was told that within three 

 months one hundred were thus destroyed. In Chile they are 

 generally driven up bushes or trees, and are then either shot, or 

 baited to death by dogs. The dogs employed in this chase 



