34 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
shore of the Father of Waters, whose current the 
jaguar is quite competent to swim, if he likes. As 
for the puma, he possesses the whole continent as 
far north at least as the watershed of Hudson Bay, 
in the east, while on the western coast he follows 
the mountains to the middle of British Columbia. 
Southward he is plentiful throughout the tropics, 
and less so even to the Straits of Magellan. No 
other kind of cat, not only, but no other sort of 
land animal whatever (not domesticated) equals 
this species in north and south range (100 de- 
grees); and that implies that no other is called 
upon to adapt itself to such a diversity of seasons, 
climatic conditions, food, and competition. It has 
to meet not only the cardinal contrasts of climate 
between tropical and subarctic zones, but, as it is 
widely distributed on both continents, it encounters 
all the differences that can be found between life 
in Canadian spruce-woods or on the high cordil- 
leras from Alaska to Chile, and the moist, feverish 
lowlands from the Mexican coasts to southern 
Brazil. One would expect to see in such a species 
—the more so as the individual animals are not 
far wanderers, but remarkably stationary in habi- 
tat — wide variations from the type; but, on the 
contrary, few animals exhibit less diversity in size, 
structure, or external appearance. 
A comparison of the puma with the jaguar is 
highly interesting in respect to color as well as in 
the matter of distribution. While the yellow hide 
