22 THE PENNSYLVANIA LION OR PANTHER. 



herd of about thirty deer, another unusual occurrence 

 for that time. The young panthers usually followed 

 the mother until almost full grown. They hunted 

 with her, but when two or three years old left to seek 

 mates. Panthers did not have young every year, but 

 only brought forth a fresh litter when abandoned by 

 their almost mature offspring. In "Fur News Alaga- 

 zine'' a writer from Perry County describes a battle to 

 the death between male panthers which was witnessed 

 one night by a belated traveler crossing the "Seven 

 Brothers," as the Seven Mountains, the Tussey, Path 

 Vrdley, Thick Plead, Sand, Bald, Shade and Stone 

 ranges, are often called. The traveler watched the com- 

 bat from behind a big roclv, seeing the two fierce brutes 

 tear each other to pieces. The males and females, 

 except mother and young, kept separate except during 

 the mating season. The panther is a silent animal 

 except at this season, and when its young is taken. 

 Its love song was majestic, but its cry of maternal 

 anguish one of the most doleful to be conjured by the 

 imagination. \V. PI. Schwartz, the brilliant editor of 

 the Altoona Tribune, recently wrote : "Anent the cry 

 of the panther. This writer had many conversations 

 with a gentleman who was born in 1768 and who was 

 one of the pioneers in this vicinity. Many times did 

 he make our young blood run cold by the tales of the 

 panther and its habit of crying through the night like 

 an abandoned child. More than that, the writer, some 

 sixty-two years ago, heard a plaintive cry one night 

 as he spent the night with his grandmother, near 



