THE FRIEND L Y PUMA A 5 



one day loosed it, and it followed them to the river, 

 traversing the city without even meddling with the 

 dogs in the street.' To these notes of Azara's, his 

 translator, Mr. W. Perceval Hunter, added in 1837 

 other evidence of its docility. He mentions the puma 

 kept by Kean the tragedian, the skeleton of which is 

 now in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. 

 This used to follow Kean loose in his garden and in 

 his house, and was * introduced to company in his 

 drawing-room.' He also quotes an account of another 

 tame puma kept in Edinburgh, ' which rejoices greatly 

 in the company of those to whom it is accustomed, lies 

 down upon its back between their feet, and plays with 

 the skirts of their garments entirely after the manner of 

 a kitten/ It got loose in London, but most properly 

 allowed itself to be captured by the watchman a thing 

 which no animal of spirit ought to have permitted. 



The corroborative evidence as to the feud between 

 the puma and the jaguar is most interesting. Azara 

 himself, though he mentions the story, doubts it. He 

 has a sound critical faculty, and pitched at once on a 

 weak point in the belief. The Indians alleged that the 

 female pumas were carried off by jaguars. Hence the 

 ill-feeling. This, he says, is clearly nonsense. But 

 this 'gloss' can, we think, be accounted for. The 

 puma cubs are spotted, some more distinctly than 

 others, at birth, though the puma, felis concolor^ is 



