Cougar 
trees oftener than among the ledges, while in fair weather they 
were given to sleeping out-of-doors, stretched along a branch in 
the shade. On their hunting excursions they steal noiselessly 
and cat-like through the thickets, scarcely displacing a twig, 
still-hunting being their favourite method of obtaining food. 
Though usually silent, they at times utter a loud penetrating 
scream. 
Among hunters there is a pretty wide-spread theory that the 
cougar’s change in colour follows the seasonal change of the 
wild deer’s coat, becoming more or less spotted in summer to 
imitate the young fawns. This is, however, quite erroneous, 
_ for although the kittens, like those of all the cat tribe, are 
spotted, the adults are never mottled. The shade varies in 
winter and summer, and there seems to be a good deal of 
individual variation, some being browner and others more of a 
blue gray. 
In Mr. Theodore Roosevelt's admirable article on the cougar 
in Scribner's Magazine he writes: ‘‘Fables aside, the cougar is a 
very interesting creature. It is found from the cold, desolate 
‘plains of Patagonia to north of the Canadian line, and _ lives 
alike among the snow-clad peaks of the Andes and in the 
steaming forests of the Amazon. Doubtless careful investigation 
will disclose several varying forms in an animal found over such 
immense tracts of country and living under such utterly diverse 
conditions. But in its essential habits and traits the big, slink- 
ing, nearly uni-coloured cat seems to be much the same every- 
where, whether living in mountain, open plain or forest, under 
Arctic cold or tropic heat. When the settlements become thick 
it retires to dense forest, dark swamp, or inaccessible mountain 
gorge, and moves about only at night. In wilder regions it not 
infrequently roams during the day and ventures freely into the 
open. Deer are its customary prey where they are plentiful, 
bucks, does and fawns being killed indifferently. Usually the 
deer is killed almost instantly, but occasionally there is quite a 
scuffle, in which the cougar may get bruised, though as far as 
1 know, never seriously. It is also a dreaded enemy of sheep, 
pigs, calves, and especially colts, and when pressed by hunger 
a big male cougar will kill a full-grown horse or cow, moose 
or wapiti. It is the special enemy of the mountain sheep. In 
1886, while hunting white goats north of Clarke’s fork of the 
aor 
