THE PENNSYLVANIA LION OR PANTHER. 25 



were taken in a limited district, and all of this great 

 hunter's neighbors were engaged slaying panthers at 

 the same time. During these twenty-five years it is 

 estimated that six hundred panthers were killed in 

 Centre county. Eleven full grown panthers were 

 killed on jMedix Run, which flows thi-ough Clearfield 

 and Elk counties, during the winter of 1853. At no 

 time, lio\ve\er, was the range of the Pennsylvania lion 

 evenly distributed. While it was teeming in Centre, 

 Clearfield and counties further South, it was a rare 

 \ isitor in Potter, jMcKean and Warren counties. 

 C. W. Dickinson, the great hunter of the Black Forest, 

 says: "Panthers were never as prevalent at the head- 

 waters of the Alleghany as on the Susquehanna, the 

 Clarion, or the Juniata. I don't believe that more 

 than ten or twelve were captured in what is now j\1c- 

 Kean county since the first white man settled there. 

 I believe that panthers, like wild cats, were afraid of 

 the ^</''<'3' timber wolves which abounded there. Yet 

 the panther was almost as plentiful in Tioga, Bradford 

 and Susquehanna counties as it was in Centre or 

 ^rifflin. Plundreds were slain in Susquehanna count)' 

 and Blackman's history of that county abounds with 

 instances of its appearance among the early settlers. 

 It was killed by the hundreds in W^yoming and coun- 

 ties directly South. It bred in the inaccessible swamps 

 in Susquehanna county and among the rocky fast- 

 nesses at the headwaters of the Lehigh river. It was 

 never plentiful in Clinton county, but was found in 

 great numbers in Lycoming and Sullivan. The lim- 



