26 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



natured, and exceedingly efficient serpent which I had been 

 holding in my arms. 



Our trip was not intended as a hunting-trip but as a 

 scientific expedition. Before starting on the trip itself, 

 while travelling in the Argentine, I received certain pieces of 

 first-hand information concerning the natural history of 

 the jaguar, and of the cougar, or puma, which are worth 

 recording. The facts about the jaguar are not new in the 

 sense of casting new light on its character, although they 

 are interesting; but the facts about the behavior of the 

 puma in one district of Patagonia are of great interest, 

 because they give an entirely new side of its life-history. 



There was travelling with me at the time Doctor Fran- 

 cisco P. Moreno, of Buenos Aires. Doctor Moreno is at 

 the present day a member of the National Board of Edu- 

 cation of the Argentine, a man who has worked in every 

 way for the benefit of his country, perhaps especially for 

 the benefit of the children, so that when he was first intro- 

 duced to me it was as the "Jacob Riis of the Argentine" 

 — for they know my deep and affectionate intimacy with 

 Jacob Riis. He is also an eminent man of science, who 

 has done admirable work as a geologist and a geographer. 

 At one period, in connection with his duties as a boundary 

 commissioner on the survey between Chile and the Argen- 

 tine, he worked for years in Patagonia. It was he who 

 made the extraordinary discovery in a Patagonian cave of 

 the still fresh fragments of skin and other remains of the 

 mylodon, the aberrant horse known as the onohipidium, 

 the huge South American tiger, and the macrauchenia, all of 

 them extinct animals. This discovery showed that some of 



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