334 LIFE OF AUDUBON. 



up my gun, and sat down to partake of the homely but whole- 

 some fare intended for the supper of the squatter, his wife, and 

 his two sons. The quietness of the evening seemed in perfect 

 accordance with the gentle demeanour of the family. The wife 

 and children, I more than once thought, seemed to look upon 

 me as a strange sort of person, going about, as I told them I 

 was, in search of birds and plants ; and were I here to relate the 

 many questions which they put to me, in return for those which I 

 addressed to them, the catalogue 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, compared with that of New 

 England, exclaimed to myself, how much more difficult'must it 

 be for men to, thrive in those populous countries ! The conver- 

 sation 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, wliich, 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 

 committed 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, notwithstanding the many 

 attempts he had made to shoot it. The ' painter,' as he some- 

 times called it, had on several occasions robbed him of a dead 

 deer ; and to these exploits, the squatter added several remark- 

 able feats of audacity which it had performed, to give me an 

 idea of the formidable character of the beast. Delighted by his 



