CHAPTER XV. 



PANTHERS, AND OUR OTHER FELINES. 



IN preceding articles I protested against any wholesale 

 denunciation of the native wild beasts of our continent as 

 naturally cowards. It sounds like a sort of imputation upon 

 our soil, that it is not strong enough to have grown even 

 wild cats, panthers, bears, etc., with the full instincts of 

 destructiveness peculiar to their species elsewhere. 



Mr. Audubon and Dr. Bachman, the editors of the new 

 work on the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, 

 entirely discredit what they call " the stories" of its boldness 

 in attacking larger animals, n^en or even children. I agree 



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