42 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
young, because the father does not summon his 
family to share with him a feast, as the African 
lion is said to do. The mother leads her half- 
grown kittens about with her, and doubtless gives 
them useful instruction; but, according to Merriam, 
she leaves them somewhat behind when actually in 
pursuit of prey, fetching them to share the results. 
The amatory season occurs during the early win- 
ter (varying according to latitude and climate), 
when the female’s softened mood and desire for 
companionship apparently lead her to strange 
doings, for it is hard otherwise to account for the 
actions related of certain cougars that have in- 
sisted upon an unpleasantly close acquaintance 
with, rather than have made an attack upon, 
human beings. Thus several cases have been 
related as occurring in broad daylight in the State 
of Washington, where unarmed men or women 
have been approached by a puma, which came 
close, and even leaped upon them, knocking them 
down and scaring them nearly to death, then re- 
treated a little way, danced and rolled about, but 
at first, at least, offered no harm, beyond playfully 
seizing and tearing their clothes. Later, however, 
a realization of human helplessness, together with 
impatience at the lack of sympathy with feline 
humor, sometimes provoked a more savage attack. 
Nowhere is the puma more numerous and famil- 
iar, in spite of the war of extermination waged 
against it by the ranchmen, than on the pampas 
