V. EARLY PREVALENCE. 



LIOXS in British East Africa were never more 

 prevalent than was the panther in Pennsylvania 

 a centnry or more ago. The woods fairly 

 teemed with them. Yet they made no inroads on the 

 myriads of elk, deer, hares, heath-cocks, wild turkeys, 

 grouse, quails, wild pigeons, rabbits and hares which 

 shared the forest covers with them. The first settlers 

 destroyed all game mercilessly and when it grew 

 scarce blamed its disappearance on the panthers, 

 lynxes, wildcats, wolves and foxes. A warfare was 

 waged against the miscalled predatory beasts ; they 

 were exterminated, but game became scarcer than 

 ever. It is now only that people are beginning to 

 wake up to the fact that the panthers were the victims 

 of a cowardly plot to avert the white hunters' culpa- 

 bility. S. X. Rhoads states that in Luzerne county 

 bounties amouning to $1,822 were paid on the scalps 

 of panthers between 1808 and 1820. More than fifty 

 of these superb animals were killed in one year. J. J. 

 .'Vudubon relates that "Among the mountains of the 

 headwaters of the Juniata river, as we were informed, 

 the cougar is so abundant that one man has killed for 

 some years from two to five, and one very hard winter 

 seven." This was written about 18.50. Samuel Askey, 

 of Snow Slioe, Centre county, killed sixty-four 

 panthers between the years of 1820 and 181.5. These 



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