i 9 4 A SPORTING PARADISE 



touch my hand, I felt the warning was sufficient 

 and returned back cougarless. Afterwards I was 

 informed my adventure might have ended fatally, 

 because the cougar rarely wanders far from his 

 mate, and the two would undoubtedly have 

 attacked me. 



The dens of this species are generally near the 

 mouth of some cave in the rocks, where the 

 animal's lair is just far enough inside to be out of 

 the rain ; and not in this respect like the dens of 

 the bear, which are sometimes ten or twelve yards 

 from the opening of a large crack or fissure in 

 the rocks. In the Southern States, where there 

 are no caves or rocks, the lair of the cougar is 

 generally in a dense thicket or in a cane-brake. 

 It is a rude sort of bed of sticks, weeds, leaves, 

 and grasses or mosses, and where the canes arch 

 over it, as they are evergreen, their long pointed 

 leaves turn the rain at all seasons of the year. 



The cougar measures about five feet long from 

 the point of its nose to the root of the tail. The 

 cry of this animal in the forest during the mating 

 season is startling and remarkable. My attention 

 was drawn to such cries proceeding from a belt 

 of thick wood on the opposite shore of Lake 

 Muskoka, while I was residing at Fairmont. 



