262 



AUDUBON 



t "■ 



V, 



would occupy several pages. The husband, a native of 

 Connecticut, had heard of the existence of such men as 

 myself, both in our own country and abroad, and seemed 

 greatly pleased to have me under his roof. Supper over, 

 I asked my kind host what had induced him to remove to 

 this wild and solitary spot. "The people are growing 

 too numerous now to thrive in New England," was his 

 answer. I thought of the state of some parts of Europe, 

 and calculating the denseness of their population com- 

 pared with that of New England, exclaimed to myself, 

 " How much more difficult must it be for men to thrive 

 in those populous countries ! " The conversation then 

 changed, and the squatter, his sons and myself, spoke of 

 hunting and fishing until at length, tired, we laid our- 

 selves down on pallets of Bear skins, and reposed in 

 peace on the floor of the only apartment of which the hut 

 consisted. 



Day dawned, and the squatter's call to his hogs, which, 

 being almost in a wild state, were suffered to seek the 

 greater portion of their food in the woods, awakened me. 

 Being ready dressed I was not long in joining him. The 

 hogs and their young came grunting at the well known 

 call of their owner, who threw them a few ears of corn, 

 and counted them, but told me that for some weeks their 

 number had been greatly diminished by the ravages com- 

 mitted upon them by a large Panther, by which name the 

 Cougar is designated in America, and that the ravenous 

 animal did not content himself with the flesh of his pigs, 

 but now and then carried off one of his calves, notwith- 

 standing the many attempts he had made to shoot it. 

 The Painter, as he sometimes called it, had on several 

 occasions robbed him of a dead Deer; and to these exploits 

 the squatter added several remarkable feats of audacity 

 which it had performed, to give me an idea of the formi- 

 dable character of the beast. Delighted by his descrip- 

 tion, I offered to assist him in destroying the enemy, at 





