THE START 31 



least occasional man-eating has become chronic with a 

 species which elsewhere is the most cowardly, and to man 

 the least dangerous, of all the big cats. 



These observations of Doctor Moreno have a peculiar 

 value, because, as far as I know, they are the first trust- 

 worthy accounts of a cougar's having attacked man save 

 under circumstances so exceptional as to make the attack 

 signify little more than the similar exceptional instances 

 of attack by various other species of wild animals that 

 are not normally dangerous to man. 



The jaguar, however, has long been known not only 

 to be a dangerous foe when itself attacked, but also now 

 and then to become a man-eater. Therefore the instances 

 of such attacks furnished me are of merely corroborative 

 value. 



In the excellent zoological gardens at Buenos Aires the 

 curator. Doctor Onelli, a naturalist of note, showed us a 

 big male jaguar which had been trapped in the Chaco, 

 where it had already begun a career as a man-eater, having 

 killed three persons. They were killed, and two of them 

 were eaten; the animal was trapped, in consequence of 

 the alarm excited by the death of his third victim. This 

 jaguar was very savage; whereas a young jaguar, which 

 was in a cage with a young tiger, was playful and friendly, 

 as was also the case with the young tiger. On my trip to 

 visit La Plata Museum I was accompanied by Captain 

 Vicente Montes, of the Argentine Navy, an accomplished 

 officer of scientific attainments. He had at one time been 

 engaged on a survey of the boundary between the Argen- 

 tine and Parana and Brazil. They had a quantity of 

 dried beef in camp. On several occasions a jaguar came 



