WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS 19 



dog. On Mr. Hudson's theory he must do this because 

 of his altruistic feeling toward the dog. In fact, Mr. 

 Hudson could make out a better case of philo-humanity 

 for the North American wolf than for the North Ameri- 

 can cougar. Equally absurd is it to talk, as Mr. Hudson 

 does, of the cougar as the especial enemy of other fero- 

 cious beasts. Mr. Hudson speaks of it as attacking and 

 conquering the jaguar. Of this I know nothing, but such 

 an extraordinary statement should be well fortified with 

 proofs; and if true it must mean that the jaguar is an 

 infinitely less formidable creature than it has been 

 painted. In support of his position Mr. Hudson alludes 

 to the stories about the cougar attacking the grizzly bear. 

 Here I am on ground that I do know. It is true that 

 an occasional old hunter asserts that the cougar does this, 

 but the old hunter who makes such an assertion also in- 

 variably insists that the cougar is a ferocious and habitual 

 man-killer, and the two statements rest upon equally 

 slender foundations of fact. I have never yet heard of 

 a single authentic instance of a cougar interfering with 

 a full-grown big bear. It will kill bear cubs if it gets a 

 chance; but then so will the fox and the fisher, not to 

 speak of the wolf. In 1894, a cougar killed a colt on a 

 brushy river bottom a dozen miles below my ranch on the 

 Little Missouri. I went down to visit the carcass and 

 found that it had been taken possession of by a large 

 grizzly. Both I and the hunter who was with me were 

 very much interested in what had occurred, and after a 

 careful examination of the tracks we concluded that the 

 bear had arrived on the second night after the kill. He 



