232 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



"although usually inoffensive to man, occasionally works great havoc 

 among the scattered population when the floods cut off the usual food 

 and drive him a hungry maurauder to other pastures." 6 One at bay at- 

 tacked four men at Santa Fe in i825. 7 Stories are told of jaguars 

 seizing and devouring boys who for just a moment have stepped be- 

 yond the circle of open fires maintained at night for protection. The 

 food of the Ramsey jaguar (F. ramseyi) in Brazil is largely alligators, 

 with an occasional calf, wild bull or swamp deer. 8 The large unspotted 

 cats of America variously known as puma, cougar, panther and moun- 

 tain lion (Felis cougar, etc.) have often been accused of attacking men, 

 but usually it has been when they have been wounded or pursued, or 

 for some reason imagine themselves or their young to be in danger. 9 

 A 13-year-old boy was killed by a mountain lion near Okanogan, 

 Washington, in 1924, under circumstances indicating that the attack 

 was unprovoked. 10 In 1890 a 7-year-old boy was killed by two moun- 

 tain lions in California, in an apparently unprovoked attack. 11 In 1909 

 a boy and a girl died in California from rabies following bites from a 

 rabid mountain lion. 12 While it is evident that mountain lions are poten- 

 tially dangerous, the very few instances of unprovoked attacks, in 

 proportion to the large number of people constantly travelling about 

 alone where these animals are common, shows that the danger is slight. 

 In proportion to numbers, the mountain lion is the most destruc- 

 tive of our North American Felidae. Bell estimated the annual damage 

 done to domestic stock by each one at $1,000, and says that in the co- 

 operative campaign against predacious mammals by the United States 

 Biological Survey and western stockmen, 540 lions were killed from 

 1914 to I92O. 13 The estimate of $1,000 to each cat per annum is not 

 supported by very definite evidence. Dixon considers it too high, but 

 shows that mountain lions are serious enemies of deer. He says that, 

 of 43 lion stomachs examined, 80 per cent contained remains of deer 

 and only 2 per cent contained remains of stock, and that, while 4000 

 lions have been killed under bounties from the California Fish and 



"Jennison, Natural history: animals, p. 65, 1927. 



7 Seton, Lives of game animals, i, Part i, pp. 4-33, 1929. 



8 Miller, Journ. Mammalogy, xi, 14, 1930. 



9 Osgood, Attacked by a cougar?, Journ. Mammalogy, I, 240, 1920. Seton, Lives of 

 game animals, i, Part I, pp. 37-136, 1929. 



10 Finley, Cougar kills a boy, Journ. Mammalogy, vi, 197-199, 1925; California 

 Fish and Game, xi, 89-90, 1925. Hall, The Murrelet, May, 1925. 



11 Outdoor Life, xxxvi, 162-163, 1915. California Fish and Game, ix, 45, 1923. 



12 Storer, Rabies in a mountain lion, California Fish and Game, ix, 45-48, 1923. 



13 Bell, Hunting down stock killers, Yearbook U. S. Dept. Agric. for 1920, pp. 

 298-300. 



