VI. A WOULD-BE ' HELPER: THE 

 FRIENDLY PUMA 



RECENT inquiry presents the puma, the ' lion ' of the 

 New World, in a very pleasing light. It is claimed that 

 the puma is positively friendly to man, hostile to other 

 large carnivora, and that alone of the great cats it 

 desires of its free will to be a * helper and server ' of 

 man. This belief, very strongly asserted by Mr. 

 Hudson in his ' Naturalist in La Plata/ which rests 

 both on the local belief of the inhabitants of a great 

 part of South America, and on the records of the 

 naturalists and historians of the old Spanish colonies, 

 receives some support from an incident recently com- 

 municated to the writer by a gentleman on a visit to 

 this country in connection with the Venezuela Boundary 

 Commission, after a long residence in British Guiana. 

 He was going up one of the rivers in a steam- 

 launch, and gave a passage to a Cornish miner who 

 was going up to the gold-fields. The passenger, who 

 was an elderly man, usually slung his hammock on 



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