40 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 



ard and tiger, it might have remained to this day 

 a source of terror in many thinly settled neighbor- 

 hoods, such as the Catskill Mountains, which are 

 supposed to have been named in reference to it. 

 The rocky wilds of northeastern Quebec and New 

 Brunswick may shelter a few, and a small number 

 of pairs still survives in the Adirondacks, although 

 the bounty paid by the State since 1871 has nearly 

 exterminated them there. Ten yeai's ago one 

 heard of an occasional panther in the Alleghanies, 

 and some probably remain in the swamps along 

 the western side of the lower Mississippi, and in 

 the Ozarks ; but the whole northern-central region 

 of the Union has long been free from them. Prac- 

 tically, therefore, we may say that the puma has 

 disappeared east of the Black Hills and western 

 Texas ; yet a century has not elapsed since one 

 was taken in Westchester County, N.Y., adjoining 

 'New York City. 



This animal seems never to have been very nu- 

 merous — much less so than bears, wolves, or 

 lynxes. Nature, indeed, provides against undue 

 multiplication of these powerful and predatory 

 beasts. No machine with automatic governor, 

 however delicate, equals the self-acting influences 

 that preserve, in a state of nature, unbroken by 

 civilized interferences, the balance of an equal 

 chance for all — a true animal socialism. Thus a 

 single pair of these destructive and long-lived cats 

 seems originally to have occupied alone a certain 



