The Start 29 



had known Mr. Hudson, the author of the "Naturalist 

 on the Plata," and that the latter knew nothing what- 

 ever of pumas from personal experience and had ac- 

 cepted as facts utterly wild fables. 



Undoubtedly, said the doctor, the puma in South 

 America, like the puma in North America, is, as a general 

 rule, a cowardly animal which not only never attacks 

 man, but rarely makes any efficient defence when at- 

 tacked. The Indian and white hunters have no fear 

 of it in most parts of the country, and its harmlessness 

 to man is proverbial. But there is one particular spot 

 in southern Patagonia where cougars, to the doctor's own 

 personal knowledge, have for years been dangerous foes 

 of man. This curious local change in habits, by the 

 way, is nothing unprecedented as regards wild animals. 

 In portions of its range, as I am informed by Mr. Lord 

 Smith, the Asiatic tiger can hardly be forced to fight 

 man, and never preys on him, while throughout most 

 of its range it is a most dangerous beast, and often turns 

 man-eater. So there are waters in which sharks are 

 habitual man-eaters, and others where they never touch 

 men; and there are rivers and lakes where crocodiles 

 or caymans are very dangerous, and others where they 

 are practically harmless — I have myself seen this in 

 Africa. 



In March, 1877, Doctor Moreno with a party of men 

 working on the boundary commission, and with a num- 

 ber of Patagonian horse-Indians, was encamped for some 

 weeks beside Lake Viedma, which had not before been 

 visited by white men for a century, and which was 

 rarely visited even by Indians. One morning, just be- 



