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 

 I 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 



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