THE PENNSYLVANIA LION OR PANTHER. 55 



C. W" Dickinson says: "A great many writers 

 claim that a panther does not scream or make any 

 noise. They might as well try to make me believe that 

 a pack of wolves could not howl or bark, growl or 

 whine." Dickinson heard the panther cry at the head 

 of the Driftwood branch of the Sinnemahoning when 

 camping with his father, E. H. Dickinson, in the 

 summer of 1873. He says it was "a loud, shrill, 

 scream.'' He saw the last panther tracks on the Drift- 

 wood branch in January of the same year, while on a 

 hunting trip with his father. But there are real super- 

 stitions of the painter — as most of the early settlers 

 called it. It was said to have a very definite spirit, 

 which came back and haunted familiar scenes after 

 it had met with an unnatural death. A hunter in Cen- 

 treville, Snyder county, in 1864:, killed a large male 

 panther, stufl^ed it and mounted it on the ridge-pole of 

 his wood-house. One night the mate came after it, 

 and springing on the roof, pushed the effigy into the 

 yard. She carried it back to Jack's Mountain, where 

 many persons averred it came to life again. In the 

 White Mountains, not far from Troxelville, Snyder 

 county, a panther was killed and its hide put into an 

 attic to cure. Strange noises were heard, and the 

 skin mounted on a carpenter's trestle was met with 

 in the woods at night. A witch doctor hit the horrid 

 manikin with a silver bullet, after which it gave no 

 further trouble. Among the superstitious the Dorman 

 panther was said to leave its case in the Natural His- 

 tory Museum on the top floor of the old Academy 



