OUR PARTY 25 



exceedingly efficient serpent which I had been holding 

 in my arms. 



Our trip was not intended as a hunting-trip, but as 

 a scientific expedition. Before starting on the trip 

 itself, while travelling in the Argentine, I received 

 certain pieces of first-hand information concerning the 

 natural history of the jaguar, and of the cougar, or 

 puma, which are worth recording. The facts about the 

 jaguar are not new in the sense of casting new light 

 on its character, although they are interesting ; but the 

 facts about the behaviour of the puma in one district of 

 Patagonia are of great interest, because they give an 

 entirely new side of its life-history. 



There was travelling with me at the time Doctor 

 Francisco P. Moreno, of Buenos Aires. Doctor Moreno 

 is at the present day a member of the National Board of 

 Education of the Argentine, a man who has worked in 

 every way for the benefit of his country, perhaps 

 especially for the benefit of the children, so that when 

 he was first introduced to me it was as the " Jacob Riis 

 of the Argentine " — for they know my deep and 

 affectionate intimacy with Jacob Riis. He is also an 

 eminent man of science, who has done admirable work 

 as a geologist and a geographer. At one period, in 

 connection with his duties as a boundary commissioner 

 on the survey between Chile and the Argentine, he 

 worked for years in Patagonia. It was he who made 

 the extraordinary discovery in a Patagonian cave of the 

 still fresh fragments of skin and other remains of the 

 mylodon, the aberrant horse known as the onohipidium, 

 the huge South American tiger, and the macrauchenia, 

 all of them extinct animals. This discovery showed 

 that some of the strange representatives of the giant 



