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WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS 21 



snow-clad peaks of the Andes and in the steaming forests 

 of the Amazon. Doubtless careful investigation will dis- 

 close 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, slinking, nearly uni-colored cat seems to be much 

 the same everywhere, 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 infrequent- 

 ly 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 indiffer- 

 ently. Usually the deer is killed almost instantaneously, 

 but occasionally there is quite a scuffle, in which the cou- 

 gar 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 hun- 

 ger a big male cougar will kill a full-grown horse or 

 cow, moose or wapiti. It is the special enemy of moun- 

 tain sheep. In 1886, while hunting white goats north 

 of Clarke's fork of the Columbia, in a region where cou- 

 gar were common, I found them preying as freely on 

 the goats as on the deer. It rarely catches antelope, but 

 is quick to seize rabbits, other small beasts, and even por- 

 cupines, as well as bobcats, coyotes and foxes. 



No animal, not even the wolf, is so rarely seen or so 

 difficult to get without dogs. On the other hand, no other 

 wild beast of its size and power is so easy to kill by the aid 



