86 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



once come across a horse which a jaguar had thus killed 

 and dragged for over a mile. Jaguars also stalk and kill 

 the deer; in this neighborhood they seemed to be less 

 habitual deer-hunters than the cougars; whether this is 

 generally the case I cannot say. They have been known 

 to pounce on and devour good-sized anacondas. 



In this particular neighborhood the ordinary jaguars 

 molested the cattle and horses hardly at all except now 

 and then to kill calves. It was only occasionally that 

 under special circumstances some old male took to cattle- 

 killing. There were plenty of capybaras and deer, and 

 evidently the big spotted cats preferred the easier prey 

 when it was available; exactly as in East Africa we 

 found the lions living almost exclusively on zebra and 

 antelope, and not molesting the buffalo and domestic cat- 

 tle, which in other parts of Africa furnish their habitual 

 prey. In some other neighborhoods, not far distant, our 

 hosts informed us that the jaguars lived almost ex- 

 clusively on horses and cattle. They also told us that 

 the cougars had the same habits as the jaguars except 

 that they did not prey on such big animals. The cougars 

 on this ranch never molested the foals, a fact which as- 

 tonished me, as in the Rockies they are the worst enemies 

 of foals. It was interesting to find that my hosts, and 

 the mixed-blood hunters and ranch workers, combined 

 special knowledge of many of the habits of these big cats 

 with a curious ignorance of other matters concerning 

 them and a readiness to believe fables about them. This 

 was precisely what I had found to be the case with the 

 old-time North American hunters in discussing the puma, 

 bear, and wolf, and with the English and Boer hunters 



