NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 243 



Bailey, writing in 1905, says: "In most of eastern Texas 

 panthers are reported as formerly common, but now as very 

 rare or entirely extinct. Individuals have been killed, however, 

 within a few years in the swamps not far from Jefferson in the 

 northeastern part and Sour Lake in the southeastern part of 

 the State. At Tarkington Prairie Mr. A. W. Carter says there 

 were a few panthers when he was a boy in 1860, but he has not 

 seen one since. In the Big Thicket of Hardin County a few 

 panthers have been killed in past years, and Dan Griffin, who 

 lives 7 miles northeast of Sour Lake, says a very large one 

 occasionally passes his place. He saw its tracks in the winter 

 of 1903-4 ... In the rough and sparsely settled western 

 part of the State mountain lions are still fairly common in 

 certain sections, where they often lay a heavy tribute on colts, 

 calves, and sheep." In the region about Langtry they were 

 reported as common a few years previously, but in 1903 were 

 become already scarce; and there were a few at that time in the 

 Franklin Mountains, where they annually killed numbers of 

 colts. "In the Davis Mountains these cougars have been 

 hunted with hounds till scarce, but in the Santiago Range, in 

 the Chisos Mountains, and along the canyons of the Rio 

 Grande and Pecos they" were still common in 1905 (Bailey). 

 Even at the present day a few cougars still trouble the cattle 

 ranchers in this region, but are constantly being hunted down. 

 Of their future prospects, Bailey writes: "The rough desert 

 ranges, full of canyons, cliffs, and caves, are the favorite haunts 

 of the panthers, and will be their last strongholds, not only 

 because of the advantages they offer for foraging but because 

 of the protection they afford from hounds and hunters. " In 

 extreme southern Texas they were, according to Attwater in 

 1896, "not as scarce as the Jaguar in the country west of San 

 Antonio, but they are fast becoming killed out" (J. A. Allen, 

 1896). He knew of but two records in recent times that he 

 considered trustworthy; these, in Bexar and Kerr Counties, 

 respectively, were sight records made in 1893 and 1894. 



Mountain lions probably referable to the race azteca "are 

 or have been common over practically all of New Mexico, but 

 they are rapidly decreasing in numbers and in 1931, writes 

 Bailey, "are rare or absent from most of the open plains 

 country, but are still found in many of the rough or timbered 

 mountain ranges, which afford them cover and game." In a 



