238 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Wind River Mountains, but it seems likely that those formerly 

 believed to occur in the eastern parts of the Dakotas were of 

 the race couguar. 



Summarizing the former presence of the mountain lion in 

 New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Rhoads (1903) says that though 

 originally found in every part of both States it was always 

 more plentiful in the Allegheny Mountains. As early as 1697, 

 on account of its destructiveness to stock, a bounty was placed 

 on this animal in New Jersey, amounting to 20 shillings for 

 "whatsoever Christian shall kill and bring" in the head, or 

 half that sum to a Negro or an Indian. In 1730, this bounty 

 was reduced to 15 shillings, and evidently it had been effective, 

 for the species seems to have been extirpated by about 1830 

 or 1840. In the wilder parts of Pennsylvania, however, the 

 mountain lion persisted till much later. In Audubon and 

 Bachman's time, about the middle of the last century, it was 

 so common "among the mountains of the headwaters of the 

 Juniata River . . . that one man has killed for some years 

 from 2 to 5, and one very hard winter, 7." The latest date 

 when one was killed in Pennsylvania was, according to Rhoads, 

 about 1871, although later reports of two panthers killed in 

 Treaster Valley take the date down to 1893, and may be 

 trustworthy. Three subsequent reports of tracks and even an 

 animal seen are as recent as 1913 (Shoemaker, 1914). It is not 

 at all impossible that panthers may still survive in the wilder 

 parts of the West Virginia and Tennessee Alleghenies. Kellogg 

 (1937, 1939) has summarized the available information on this 

 matter and finds that although numerous enough at the time 

 of settlement to give the pioneers some trouble, their numbers 

 had been much reduced by the middle of the last century. He 

 cites statistics showing that in West Virginia 11 were killed in 

 1853, 14 in 1856, 11 in 1858, and 6 in 1859. The last record 

 for Lewis County was in 1855, and there is a skeleton in the 

 U. S. National Museum from Hampshire County, taken in 

 1850. Although no record of any having since been killed is 

 given, Kellogg includes various reports of late date, such as 

 "tracks of a panther in the snow on Black Mountain during 

 the winter of 1935 and also in 1936"; but all such reports 

 should be received with caution, even though made by persons 

 who might be capable of correctly identifying the species. 

 Shoemaker (1914), however, states that one was killed in No- 



