THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
name, because, in addition to its being a native and an easy 
word, it alone appears to refer to this very animal; for “‘cougar” 
is a made word, coined or borrowed by Buffon. 
As has been implied, the adult puma has no spots whatever, 
except that the lips are black, with a patch of white on each 
side of the muzzle, the outer rim of the ear is black, and some- 
times the tip of the tail. Its upper parts may be a uniform 
pale fox-red, or anything from that to slaty blue. This difference 
in color has nothing to do with age, sex, season, or locality. The 
throat, belly, and inside of the legs are white. 
As to size, no satisfactory evidence exists of a length greater 
than eight feet from tip of nose to tip of tail, and the average 
of “large ones” will fall well below seven feet and a weight of 
200 pounds; the amount of individual variation is astonishing. 
The comparative fullness of its skull forward gives to the head 
a rounded solidity not usual in cats, and lends to the face an 
expression of intelligence quite different from the flat-headed, 
brutish ferocity of many feline countenances — nor does this 
wholly belie its nature. 
This handsome beast seems never to have been very numerous 
in the East. Their mating is no doubt temporary save where 
they are so few that there is little or no choice; but the males 
travel long distances in their quest for partners, and it is then, 
if ever, that are heard the fearsome screams which have adorned 
so many a frontier tale. Females far outnumber males, partly, 
if Merriam is right, because more of that sex than of males are 
born, and partly because many young males are killed in their 
jealous battles with each other. The puma mother selects with 
care a secret home for her expected young, choosing 
some cave or sheltered and inaccessible place among 
rocks, usually on some ledge attainable by a leap of which no 
other animal is capable —twenty feet, sometimes; she is 
justly fearful of danger to the kittens she must often leave un- 
protected. In a flat country, like our southern states, where 
92 
Family 
Life. 
