i 4 o Life in the Open 



in the Adirondacks, and I heard of the animal in Ver- 

 mont hills near Lincoln as the catamount. In Florida 

 the camp of a party of acquaintances was robbed by a 

 cougar that took a pig, and though they watched all 

 night the animal leaped into the pen and secured an- 

 other pig, making off with the game amid a fusillade 

 from the guns of a number of frightened negro servants. 

 This cougar swam across a narrow channel to reach the 

 key, or island. In South America, from Patagonia to 

 Brazil, they will tell you of the puma and its ravages. 

 I saw it first in the Rockies of Colorado, and the same 

 animal appears on the coast from the far north, where it 

 is known as the cougar, down to Southern California, 

 where it is the mountain lion, and periodically appears, 

 preying upon small animals, but mainly upon the deer, 

 which in all regions appears to be the game of its choice. 



In appearance the lion is a tawny cat bearing some 

 resemblance to an Asiatic lioness, but much smaller : a 

 typical cat, big, long of limb, muscular and beautiful. 

 But here praise ends, as rarely will a mountain lion face 

 a man, being by nature a cowardly animal, creeping 

 upon its prey, and often intimidated by a single dog 

 and hunter. 



The big cat kills its game by stealing upon it, generally 

 attempting, in the case of deer, to approach from above, 

 hurling itself from an eminence upon the black-tailed or 

 mule deer. In Arizona, California, New Mexico, and 

 Montana doubtless many more deer are killed by mount- 

 ain lions than by hunters. In some parts of Arizona 



