200 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 



Roosevelt, in summing up its characteristics, 

 concluded that it would be no more dangerous 

 to sleep in woods populated with mountain 

 lions than if they were so many ordinary cats. 



In addition to years of camping in the wilds 

 in all sorts of places and under all conditions of 

 weather I have talked with careful frontiers- 

 men, skillful hunters and trappers, and these 

 people uniformly agreed with what I have found 

 to be true that the instances of mountain lions 

 attacking human beings are exceedingly rare. 

 In each of these cases the peculiar action of the 

 lion and the comparative ineffectiveness of his 

 attacks indicated that he was below normal 

 mentally or nearly exhausted physically. 



Two other points of agreement are: Rarely 

 does any one under ordinary conditions see a 

 lion; and just as rarely does one hear its call. 

 Of the dozen or more times I have heard the 

 screech of the lion, on three occasions there was 

 a definite cause for the cry on one a mother 

 frantically sought her young, which had been 

 carried off by a trapper; and twice the cry was 

 a wail, in each instance given by the lion calling 

 for its mate, recently slain by a hunter. 



During the past thirty years I have investi- 

 gated dozens of stories told of lions leaping 

 upon travellers from cliffs or tree limbs, or of 

 other stealthy attacks. When run down each 



