A JAGUAR-HUNT ON THE TAQUARY 81 



they struck the fresh trail and followed it at a run. It 

 led into a long belt of timber, chiefly composed of low- 

 growing nacury palms, with long, drooping, many-fronded 

 branches. In silhouette they suggest coarse bamboos; the 

 nuts hang in big clusters and look like bunches of small, 

 unripe bananas. Among the lower palms were scattered 

 some big ordinary trees. We cantered along outside the 

 timber belt, listening to the dogs within; and in a moment 

 a burst of yelling clamor from the pack told that the jag- 

 uar was afoot. These few minutes are the really exciting 

 moments in the chase, with hounds, of any big cat that 

 will tree. The furious baying of the pack, the shouts and 

 cheers of encouragement from the galloping horsemen, the 

 wilderness surroundings, the knowledge of what the quarry 

 is — all combine to make the moment one of fierce and thrill- 

 ing excitement. Besides, in this case there was the possi- 

 bility the jaguar might come to bay on the ground, in 

 which event there would be a slight element of risk, as it 

 might need straight shooting to stop a charge. However, 

 about as soon as the long-drawn howling and eager yelping 

 showed that the jaguar had been overtaken, we saw him, 

 a huge male, up in the branches of a great fig-tree. A 

 bullet behind the shoulder, from Kermit's 405 Winchester, 

 brought him dead to the ground. He was heavier than 

 the very big male horse-killing cougar I shot in Colorado, 

 whose skull Hart Merriam reported as the biggest he had 

 ever seen; he was very nearly double the weight of any 

 of the male African leopards we shot; he was nearly or 

 quite the weight of the smallest of the adult African lion- 

 esses we shot while in Africa. He had the big bones, the 

 stout frame, and the heavy muscular build of a small lion; he 



