1 THE FATHER OF GAME 35 
of the jaguar is adorned everywhere with black 
spots, the adult puma has no spots whatever, ex- 
cept that the lips are black, with a patch of white 
on each side of the muzzle, the outer rim of the 
ear is black, and sometimes the tip of the tail. Its 
upper parts are a uniform pale fox-red, more or 
less dull in certain lights, owing to the fact that 
each hair is fawn gray, red only at the tip; this 
color is more intense along the spine and decidedly 
lighter around the eyes, while the throat, belly, 
and inside of the legs are reddish white. The 
color is so much like that of the Virginia deer 
that their backs could hardly be distinguished at 
a little distance—in fact, precisely this mistake 
has been made by astonished hunters; and on the 
Amazons the puma is called “false deer.” How 
helpful such a resemblance would prove to this 
wily beast, when stealing through the grass upon 
a herd of deer or any other prey that would have 
no reason to be alarmed by the known presence of 
what it took to be.a deer, is at once evident. 
The common term “ American lion” goes back 
to the earliest days of European discovery on this 
continent, when the colonists supposed the hides 
the Indians brought in were those of the true 
lion, explaining the absence of maned examples 
by the theory that they had seen only female 
skins. ‘California lion,’ and “mountain lion,” 
“red tiger,” “panther” (or “ painter”), are less 
excusable misnomers. “Puma” is said to be 
